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Heavenly Trade-Winds 



REV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D. D. 

AUTHOR OF 

'The People's Christ," "White Slaves," ''The Revival 
Quiver," "Common Folks' Religion," "The 
Honeycombs of Life," Etc. 




CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS 
NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON 
i895 




Copyright by 
CRANSTON & CURTS, 

1895. 



LC Control Number 



*«P96 031456 



THE HONORABLE W. BYRON DANIELS, 

of Vancouver, Washington, 
This Volume 

is Dedicated, with grateful affection, 

BY 

The Author. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



HE sermons included in this volume have all 



A been delivered during the past six months 
in the regular course of my ministry in the Han- 
son Place Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn. 
They have been blessed of God in comforting the 
weary, giving courage to the faint, arousing the 
indifferent, and awakening the sinful. They are 
given to the printer with an earnest prayer that, 
wherever they go, they may indeed be Heavenly 
Trade-winds, bringing benedictions of spiritual 
help and blessing. 




LOUIS ALBERT' BANKS : 



Brooklyn, December, 1894. 



5 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

I. The Heavenly Trade-winds, 9 

II. The Conditions of a Fragrant Life, .... 25 

III. The Thirst of Life and its Satisfaction, . . 42 

IV. A Nineteenth Century Christian, 56 

V. A Great Door and Many Adversaries, ... 70 

VI. Out of the Mire into the Choir, 85 

VII. The Hero and the Suicide, ' • 99 

VIII. Christian Citizenship, 116 

IX. Tightening the Girdle-chains, 135 

X. The Night-watch of the Christian Sen- 
tinel, 149 

XI. The Christian's Credentials, 167 

XII. The River of Peace, 1S0 

XIII. The Conversion of a Tax-collector, .... 196 

XIV. The Whereabouts of the Soul, . • • • ■ • .210 
XV. A Heavenly Stairway, 226 

XVI. A Consecrated Personality, 241 

XVII. In the Apple Orchard, 258 

XVIII. The King's Signet-ring, 273 

xix. The Angel Face, 287 

XX. The Unwritten Story of Archippus, .... 303 
XXI. Oliver Wendell Holmes and his Poems of 

the Soul, 321 

XXII. Making a Feast for Heavenly Visitors, . . 335 

7 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



i. 



THE HEAVENLY TRADE-WINDS.' 



" Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow 
upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." — 
Song of Solomon iv, 16. 

T^HIS is a prayer for the heavenly trade-winds, 



A which, blowing together, like the " all 
things " which "work together " in Paul's gos- 
pel, make a healthy atmosphere for the aspiring 
soul. 

I have not invited you to a study of this 
Scripture to lead you into the maze of theolog- 
ical criticism, "higher" or otherwise. Whatever 
this book may be intended to teach, the Scrip- 
ture which I have read, studied in the light of 
the whole Bible, furnishes a rich opportunity for 
Christian meditation. It is my purpose to study 
the text as referring to the individual soul, which 
may, without any straining of the imagination, 
be compared to a garden. Does not Paul say, 




2 



9 



io Heavenly Trade-winds. 

" We are God's husbandry ?" or, as the New Ver- 
sion translates it, " God's tilled land?" 

We have then, first of all, a prayer for the 
north wind, which may seem strange to some, 
yet, in the light of experience in the cultivation 
of the soil, it is a wise prayer; for the north 
wind, which brings to us winter's cold and 
snow and ice, is as necessary in bringing to 
perfection the treasures of the garden as are 
the warm and more pleasing breezes from the 
south. The strong grip of the ice, which pul- 
verizes the soil, is just as necessary as the long, 
warm days of perpetual sunshine; and however 
unpleasant the north wind of trial and hardship 
may seem to us while we are undergoing it, ob- 
servation and experience unite with Scripture in 
teaching that this hard discipline contributes to 
the growth of the peaceable fruits of righteous- 
ness in the garden of the soul. Christ says, 
u Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be 
comforted." These words of the Savior, instead 
of treating sorrow as something evil to be 
dreaded, speak of it rather as a matter of sub- 
lime congratulation. George MacDonald, the 
London poet-preacher, commenting on this most 
comforting of the Beatitudes, declares that it 
proves that sorrow is no partition -wall between 



The Heavenly Trade-winds. ii 

man and God, and forms no obstacle to the pas- 
sage of God's light into man's soul. 

Many of the most useful and noble men and 
women who have lived, and whose splendid char- 
acters have dignified human history, have owed, 
very largely, their spiritual cultivation to the se- 
vere north winds that have blown upon them. 
We know that Jacob's character mellowed and 
ripened through agony of fear, and became sub- 
lime only after years of shadow and heart-break- 
ing grief. Who can tell how much of Joseph's 
splendid statesmanship and lofty benevolence of 
character was the fruit of the weary years he 
spent in the Egyptian dungeon? 

Bunyan, the Bedford tinker, while health and 
strength and freedom were his, was of little ac- 
count; but Bunyan, the prisoner of the gospel, 
sweetened by sorrow, made patient by trial, his 
soul uplifted through spiritual meditation, be- 
came the grandest seer of his time, and the Bed- 
ford jail was the loftiest pinnacle there was on 
earth in his day. Tens of thousands of souls, 
cheered and comforted on their way by his " Pil- 
grim's Progress," have had reason to thank God 
for the north wind that blew so sternly across 
John Bunyan's garden. 

"I had been ruined," said Themistocles, "had 



12 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



I not been ruined." Horace says the poet must 
weep who would make others weep. And Shel- 
ley, out of his own bitter experience, wrote that 
poets "must learn in suffering what they teach 
in song." The deep pathos in the poems of 
Cowper, especially that one that begins, "God 
moves in a mysterious way his wonders to per- 
form," came from the anguish of a broken heart. 
It is an old saying that a nightingale sings the 
sweetest when wounded ; and a renowned teacher 
of music, on being asked how his most promis- 
ing pupil was progressing, answered: "Only tol- 
erably well. Her mechanical execution is al- 
most perfect. She has full control of her voice, 
and knows all the outside of her art; but she 
lacks soul, and she will have to suffer before 
she can get it. If only something would break 
her heart, she would be the greatest singer in 
Europe." 

No one can comfort others in sorrow like 
those who have walked in the vale of sorrow 
themselves. As Phillips Brooks says, in one of 
his great Easter sermons: "One of the most 
blessed things about sorrow is, that if we pass 
through it bravely and reverently, taking the cup 
of grief with trust from the hand of God, we get 
the key of that sorrow forever, so that we may 



The Heavenly Trade-winds. 13 

open the darkened way into comfort to any one 
else who is called to endure the same sorrow.' ' 
" You have suffered, and have come through your 
suffering into the light; and as you stand there, 
looking back, who is it that comes up the road 
where you remember to have walked years back, 
when you were a boy or a girl — the road that led 
to your suffering? You look, and lo! another 
light and careless heart is coming, singing, up 
the road where you came. You know where the 
road leads to, but he has not yet caught sight of 
the trial that blocks it. Suddenly he comes in 
sight of that trial, and starts back. He stands 
in fright. He trembles. He is ready to run. 
1 Father, save me from it!' you hear him cry. 
What can you do for him? If you are wise and 
willing, you go down and meet him, and you 
hold out before him, in some sympathetic act or 
word, the key of your experience. 'Let me show 
you,' you say. 'Not because I am any greater 
or better than you, but only because the Father 
led me there first. Let me show you the way 
into, the way through, and the way out of, this 
sorrow which you can not escape. Into it by 
perfect submission, through it by implicit obedi- 
ence, out of it with purified passions and perfect 
love.' He sees the key in your hand; he sees 



14 



He a venl y Trade - winds. 



the experience in your face, and so he trusts 
you. ... 

"The wondrous power of experience! And 
see how beautiful and ennobling this makes our 
sorrows and temptations! Every stroke of sor- 
row that issues into light and joy is God putting 
into your hand the key of that sorrow, to un- 
lock it for all the poor souls whom you may see 
approaching it for all your future life. It is a 
noble thing to take that key and use it. There 
are no nobler lives on earth than those of men 
and women who have passed through many ex- 
periences of many sorts, and who now go about, 
with calm and happy and sober faces, holding 
their keys — some golden and some iron — and 
finding their joy in opening the gates of these 
experiences to younger souls, and sending them 
into them, full of intelligence and hope and 
trust." 

No Christian can make a greater mistake than 
to suppose that trial and hard experience are an 
indication of displeasure, or indifference, or for- 
getfulness, on the part of God. The most in- 
sidious skepticism is that which blinds the 
troubled soul to the comfort of God's personal 
thought and care. Julia Ward Howe once in- 
vited Charles Sumner to come to her house to 



The He ave xl y Trade-winds. 15 



meet a distinguished friend. Sumner declined, 
and, in doing so, said: "I have got to that period 
when I have lost all interest in individuals." 
"Why, Charles," was Mrs. Howe's witty reply, 
"God has not gotten so far as that!" 

One of the hardest things to bear in time of 
trial is the misunderstandings that are so com- 
mon. A charming story is told of the brusque 
Professor Blackie, of Edinburgh University, 
who was noted for his bluntness and severity, 
but who had a soft spot in his heart, if one 
could bore deep enough to find it. On one oc- 
casion Professor Blackie was lecturing to a new 
class, with whose personnel he had very slight 
acquaintance. A student rose to read a para- 
graph, with his book in his left hand. u Sir," 
thundered Blackie, u hold your book in your right 
hand!" and, as the student tried to speak, "No 
words, sir! Your right hand, I say!" The stu- 
dent held up his right arm, ending piteously at 
the wrist. u Sir, I have no right hand," he said. 
Before Blackie could open his lips there arose a 
storm of hisses, and by it his voice was over- 
borne. Then the professor left his place, and 
went down to the student he had so unwittingly 
hurt, and put his arm around the lad's shoulder, 
and drew him close, until the lad leaned against 



i6 



He a vexl y Trade - winds . 



his breast. "My boy," said Blackie — he spoke 
very softly, yet not so softly but that every word 
was audible — "My boy, you'll forgive me that I 
was over-rough? I did not know! I did not 
know!" How much of the sorrow of the world 
comes from lack of comprehension of the condi- 
tions which beset our brother's life! 

"Some lives are strangely rough, and swayed and driven: 
Some wind-blown clouds across a wintry sky, 
Or ships, with compass lost or rudderless, 
On heaving oceans drifting helplessly. 

Some lives, most fit for high and noble deeds, 
Are held and fettered sore with common things ; 

Some hearts hold sealed wells of tenderness. 

And saints walk through the world with folded wings. 

It is not well to judge, with finite sense, 
Our own or others' failures. Let us wait 

Till in the light of the swift-coming dawn 

The mist shall lift, and all grow clear and straight." 

We have here, also, a prayer for the south 
wind, and this is in God's order. For when the 
snow-king hath wrought his will, and the ice 
has served its purpose, and the short raw days 
and the long cold nights have done all they can 
to fit the soil of the garden for the growth of 
plants, then, up from the great south-land God 
brings the warm breath of the south wind to 
soothe and comfort the weary earth; to call the 



The Heavexly Trade -winds. 



i7 



buried seeds out of the body of death in which 
they are wrapped; to warm the cold earth until 
it becomes a nourishing bosom for tiny infant 
flowers and plants. 

There could be no garden without the south 
wind. Neither can there be any spiritual devel- 
opment without the warm and gracious sym- 
pathy of the Holy Spirit, and the tenderness of 
the Father's heart, as revealed in the Savior's 
love. From beginning to end the gospel is as 
full of good cheer as springtime and summer are 
of inspiration and gladness. 

The south wind and the sunshine will not let 
any tree or plant that has life in it resist its be- 
nevolent purpose. I have watched in the spring 
days the battle going on, seemingly, between the 
stubborn scrub-oak and the spring sun and the 
warm south wind. All the winter-time the oak 
had kept its soggy and withered leaves; ugly, 
dirty -bronze color, like the skin of some ancient 
mummy, they hung over the little tree; but after 
a few days of the warm south wind, aided by 
the heat of the sun, the hidden life, coming up 
through the arteries of the tree, pushed out 
through the branches into the little twigs, and 
fairly shoved off the ugly leaves and bade them 
begone ; and, a little later, the tree was covered 



i8 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

with the brilliant promise of summer. So, if we 
have spiritual life in us at all; if our faith and 
hope look up, even through sadness and misgiv- 
ing, and our roots run downward into the soil of 
confidence in God, the warm breath of God's 
tenderness and love will push off our sluggish 
doubts and ugly fears, and clothe us in hope and 
beauty. 

I remember hearing Dr. George Pentecost 
tell that one time he was entertained for several 
weeks in a private family, where the wife and 
mother had been sick with rheumatic fever, and 
all her physical vigor and vitality seemed to be 
chilled out of her. She also confided to Dr. 
Pentecost that, in her long illness, she had some- 
how come into a depressed and morbid state of 
mind, and had lost the spiritual comfort and joy 
which she had once known. Dr. Pentecost 
came home one day and found her sitting, as he 
had a number of times before, in a south window 
which was open to the spring sun, and she was 
sitting there in the sunshine, with her shoulder 
bared except for some thin covering. She said 
the doctor had prescribed this for her, hoping 
that the sun-bath would burn out, as it were, any 
lurking tendency to rheumatism that might re- 
main in her system. And she gladly assured 



The Heavenly Trade-winds. 19 

the Doctor that she was already getting great 
help from it. 

"Why, then," said Dr. Pentecost, "are you 
not willing to try the same treatment for your 
soul, when God recommends it to you?" And 
he turned to that verse in Jude which says: 
"Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking 
for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto 
eternal life." Then he explained to her how it 
was possible, by meditation on God's goodness 
and by living in the atmosphere of his prom- 
ises, to keep ourselves in the south window of 
God's kindness and care, and was able to bring 
his friend out of that spiritual paralysis into an 
atmosphere of warm and cheerful confidence. 

Perhaps there are some of us who may need 
the same lesson. There are some medical insti- 
tutions where they depend almost entirely for 
the recovery of patients from disease on the use 
of the sun-bath. And I am sure that, how- 
ever it may work physically, there are tens of 
thousands of rheumatic and paralyzed Christians 
who need a sun-bath of gospel treatment. 

But, after all, neither the north wind nor the 
south wind will be of any value if it blow on 
barren rock, or desolate sand, or soil overgrown 
with thorns. Our souls are to be cultivated gar- 



20 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

dens. A garden suggests at once cultivation, 
and not only so, but cultivation of the highest 
type. A great deal more care is put on the culti- 
vation of the garden than upon the large, out- 
reaching fields. A garden suggests that wild 
growths have been removed. Trees have been 
felled, stumps have been burned out, roots have 
been dug up, plowing and harrowing have been 
done, and the roller has been brought into serv- 
ice; even the small clods have been pulverized, 
needed fertilizing materials have been added to 
the soil, and then it is ready for the precious 
seeds and roots that are to be cultivated. 

So we are to be God's tilled land, not wild 
land, but the special garden of his care and cul- 
tivation. Every wicked growth must be felled. 
Every stump of lust and passion must be burned 
out. Every ugly root of evil thought must be 
dug from the heart's affection. . The plow and 
the harrow of God's discipline and grace must 
have the right of way in our hearts. Only then 
shall we be fitted to have heavenly seed sown 
therein, and soil ready, under God's cultivation, 
to produce the fragrant and beautiful graces of 
the Spirit. 

If we shall thus yield our souls to be the gar- 
den of the Lord, he shall cause to flourish there 



The Heavenly Trade-winds. 21 



a variety of beautiful graces. Those people who 
only grow one or two plants in their spiritual 
garden, and excuse themselves from growing the 
gentle and kindly graces, do not get their lessons 
in spiritual gardening from the New Testament. 
Paul, who was an expert at spiritual horticulture, 
declares that the fruit of the Spirit — a garden 
where the Holy Spirit controls — is love, joy, 
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
meekness, and temperance. There is a bouquet 
that will be pleasing to anybody who has come 
to be in any sense a partaker of the divine na- 
ture. Peter, also a good soul-gardener, tells 
something about the plants which he would 
grow. The first shrub which he mentions is 
faith, and to that he would add virtue; and to 
virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temper- 
ance; and to temperance, patience; and to pa- 
tience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly 
kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. 
And, with that accustomed daring and impul- 
siveness of Peter, he asserts that nobody can 
raise these plants without having a good garden. 
"For," he says, "if these things be in you, and 
abound, they make you that ye shall neither be 
barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 



22 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



We have also suggested the effect of such a 
garden. The prayer in our text is for the north 
wind and the south wind to blow upon the gar- 
den, not only that it may be brought to perfec- 
tion, but that the spices thereof may flow out. 

It is impossible to have a beautiful garden, 
full of fruits and flowers, without their fragrance 
being wafted on the viewless air, giving comfort 
not only to those who are permitted to enter, 
but to those who look upon it or breathe its 
perfume from the street. No man can build a 
wall high enough to shut out all the fragrance 
of a beautiful garden from the poorest passer-by. 
And if he builds no wall, but lives with open 
gate, keeping his garden, not for himself, but for 
his neighbors, it fills all the community with its 
delight. 

How precious does this illustration make our 
possibilities of Christian living ! If we cultivate 
in our hearts the graces of the Spirit, no limita- 
tions of our lives can hinder the saving spice 
thereof from reaching others. A beautiful bou- 
quet of flowers can not be spoiled by the rude 
or cracked vase in which it is held. 

A baby carriage stood, the other day, in front 
of a small shop. In it slept a pretty, dimpled 
baby. A drowsy puppy lay on the pillowy its 



The Heavenly Trade-winds. 23 

black nose snuggled close to the baby's cheek. 
By the carriage stood a ragged little waif, dirty, 
with scarcely enough clothes for decency. She 
stroked in turn the baby and the puppy. 

A lady, passing by, noticed the strange pic- 
ture — the beautiful baby, the little dog, the 
ragged child. The baby's mother was in the 
shop. " Are you caring for these?" said the lady 
to the waif. 

A wonderful smile lit up the dirty little face. 
"No, please, ma'am; I am only loving them." 
No rags, or lack of beauty in the vase, could 
take away from the beauty and fragrance of love 
in the little heart. 

Many times our righteousness is stern and 
unattractive because it lacks the spice of 
brotherly tenderness. Old Father Taylor, the 
sailor-preacher in Boston, asked a certain Meth- 
odist minister to enter his pulpit on one occa- 
sion, and he refused because a Unitarian was 
there. The good old man, in indignation, fell 
on his knees in the aisle, and cried out before 
the whole audience: "O Lord, deliver us, here 
in Boston, from bad rum and bigotry! Thou 
knowest which is worst, but I don't!" God save 
us from a garden without the spices of Christly 
sympathy and love ! 



24 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



Miracles of helpfulness are possible to those 
who cultivate the Christly graces in their hearts. 
Some poet sings: 

"The cultivation of your souls 

May warp you as you sit apart ; 
March out into the light, and heal — 
For all can heal — some broken heart. 

Think of yourselves as those in whom 

The gift of miracles is yet; 
For in his circle each can work 

These miracles. Do not forget!" 

If we live in this atmosphere, and develop 
this Christ-like spirit, Dryden's words shall be 
true of us in a higher s.ense than he intended: 

"A constant trade-wind will securely blow, 
And gently lay us on the spicy shore." 



II. 



THE CONDITIONS OF A FRAGRANT LIFE. 



"Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb : honey 
and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy gar- 
ments is like the smell of Lebanon." — Song of Solo- 
mon IV, II. 

HPHIS is a fascinating description of a beauti- 



1 ful and fragrant character and life. It pic- 
tures a conversation which may be compared to 
" honey and milk," both sweet and pleasurable, 
as well as nourishing and helpful. And the re- 
sult of such conversation is that the smell of the 
garments — that is, the influence of the whole life — 
is fragrant and refreshing, like a breath from the 
forests of Lebanon. 

It is a very suggestive and beautiful object- 
lesson which we are to study. If we enter upon 
it and pursue it with earnest, candid hearts, it 
will surely be as profitable as it is interesting. 

We have first specified here, that the tongue 
is a significant factor in the general influence of 
a life, and that the first characteristic of a tongue 
which tends to produce a fragrant life is that 
it is a honey-tongue. This is to distinguish it, 




3 



26 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

doubtless, from several other kinds of tongues 
which are altogether too common in society. 

For instance, there is the peppery tongue. 
How a peppery tongue can keep a whole house- 
full, or car-full, or church-full, smarting! Some 
people seem to feel that it is necessary always to 
keep their bristles up and the tongue peppered 
in order to be considered manly and independent. 
They imagine if a person is kind and sweet- 
tempered and patient, especially if it be a man, 
that there must be something the matter with 
him, not exactly square — must be two-faced. 
But that does not follow by any means. Ol 
course nobody likes a wishy-washy individual, 
-whose opinion or conversation is simply a weak 
copy of the last man he was with. 

One of the most remarkable plants in the 
whole vegetable kingdom is that known to bot- 
anists as the Justicia pzcta, which has also been 
w r ell named the " caricature plant." At first 
sight it appears to be a heavy, large-leafed plant, 
with purple blossoms, chiefly remarkable for the 
light-yellow centers of its dark-green leaves. 
When one first sees this odd plant, he is aston- 
ished with the fact that it seems to be " making 
faces" at him. This curious shrub occupies itsell 
in growing up in ridiculous caricatures of the 



Conditions of a Fragrant Life. 27 

human face, until at last it stands covered, from 
the topmost leaf down, with the queerest faces 
imaginable, the flesh-colored profiles standing 
out in strong relief against the dark green of the 
leaves. Some people are like that plant. But 
neither the sharp, peppery tongue nor the " mealy 
mouth" of the human " caricature plant'' is to 
be desired. 

The chameleon and the porcupine met one 
day, and compared notes. The chameleon tried 
to agree with everybody. He w T as a mirror of 
the ideas and opinions of all he met, and yet he 
was not popular. The porcupine bristled all 
over whenever anybody came near him. He 
was as full of self-assertion as a shoe-brush is of 
bristles. One couldn't deny that he always pre- 
sented sharp points, and yet nobody seemed to 
appreciate or admire him. 

"What is the matter with the world," they 
said, "that it doesn't like either one of us? If 
the chameleon doesn't suit it, the porcupine 
should. And if it is not pleased with the por- 
cupine's bristling, it ought to be with the cha- 
meleon's amiability and complacence," Silly 
beasts ! They did not know that people despise 
both the changeling and the bully. 

The true man, governed by Christian spirit, 



28 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

has opinions of his own, and is ready to state 
and defend them on all proper occasions. He 
respects the opinions of others, and does not roll 
himself up in a ball of self-conceit and say to 
everybody that comes near: "If yon tonch me, 
I'll stick a pin in you." I am often reminded 
of a man who was always boasting that he had 
more backbone than his neighbors. He was 
ready at all times to fight with those who dif- 
fered from him. One day, after he had stuck 
out his quills as usual, an old white-haired man 
said to him: " John, you remind me of a hedge- 
hog. Because it has a very weak backbone, 
nature has covered it with dangerous bristles. It 
can roll itself up like a piece of india-rubber, 
and then its sharp spines stick out in all direc- 
tions. Animals who have really strong back- 
bones never have any bristles. The man who 
is always boasting of his courage is, as a rule, an 
arrant coward. He wants to conceal his sense 
of moral weakness by bluster and bravado." 
And the old man was right. 

Two Scotchmen emigrated in the early days 
to California. Each thought to take with him 
some memorial of his beloved country. The 
one of them, an enthusiastic lover of Scotland, 
took with him a thistle, the national emblem. 



Conditions of a Fragrant Life. 29 

The other took a small swarm of honey-bees. 
Years have passed. The Pacific Coast is cursed 
with the Scotch thistle, which the farmers have 
found it impossible to exterminate. On the other 
hand, the forests and the caves on the rocky 
mountain sides, are full of wild bees, whose 
stores of honey have been a great blessing to the 
pioneers of that country. So every one of us 
may carry about a sharp, peppery tongue, that 
shall annoy and curse like a thistle, or one full 
of the honey of kindness, sympathy, and love, 
that will be a benediction to all who know us. 

Then, there is a vinegar tongue. It is a sour 
tongue, but it is very likely to be caused, in the 
first place, by the peppery tongue ; or rather it is 
a second form, an advanced stage, of the disease. 
Vinegar is produced by heat. Heat produces 
ferment, and after awhile the sweetest article 
under such an influence gets to be the sourest. 
So it is that by nursing the little heating, peppery 
annoyances, that come to any of us who are 
willing to let them in, the tongue gets sour. 

" There 's many a trouble 

Would break like a bubble, 
And into the waters of Lethe depart, 

Did we not rehearse it, 

And tenderly nurse it, 
And give it a permanent place in the heart. 



30 Heavenly Trade -winds. 

There 's many a sorrow 

Would vanish, to-morrow, 
Were we but willing to furnish the wings ; 

But, sadly intruding, 

And quietly brooding, 
It hatches out all sorts of horrible things." 

The sour tongue is a terrible foe to a happy 
home. It makes awful havoc sometimes among 
the children. God have mercy on children who, 
when they grow up and go out to fight the fierce 
battles of the world, have to look back on a 
soured and morose home-life ! Let the home be 
sweet. Let it be full of honey for parents and 
children. The vinegar tongue makes havoc in the 
business world as well as in the home. There 
is no lubricating oil so good as honey on the 
tongue in solving economic questions. Let me 
give you a single illustration. A firm, which I 
knew about a few years ago, was in rather hard 
straits. It was a large printing establishment. 
The manager was a good, straightforward Chris- 
tian man. The time mentioned was along in 
the middle of the summer. 

The managing proprietor sat down and ad- 
dressed a circular to each one of his employees, 
stating in substance that the business was not 
rendering satisfactory results. Whether it re- 
sulted from too high wages or not, he could not 



Conditions of a Fragrant Life. 31 



tell, but he asked each one to try and make his 
work count for as much as possible in the hope 
of proving that the usual way of cutting down 
wages was not always necessary. An immediate 
improvement followed the issue of the circular. 
The men were more cheerful, and appeared to 
take greater interest in the welfare of the busi- 
ness. There was less waste of material. Gas 
was turned off more promptly when not needed. 
And when the trial sheet was completed the 
next April, there was a great improvement shown 
in the result of the business. While the im- 
provement was not wholly due to the hands, 
trade having generally become better, it was evi- 
dently due in part to them. 

In view of the satisfactory results thus ob- 
tained from the good-will and extra exertion of 
his employees, the proprietor issued another cir- 
cular wherein his appreciation found expression 
in a practical form. He reduced by one hour a 
day the work of all, without reduction of pay, 
and advanced the wages of the foreman and 
some others, although he was paying fully as 
large wages as any of his competitors. I rec- 
ommend, both to employer and employees, 
honey on the tongue as the best possible way ot 
conducting business. 



32 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



But there is no place where a vinegar tongue 
is such a terror as in the Church. L,et a Church 
become aroused and excited over some special 
matter until definite parties are developed, and 
there grow to be contentions among them, and 
there will be vinegar in the religion of the sour- 
est kind, and plenty of it. It has almost grown 
into a proverb that " there is no quarrel like a 
Church quarrel/ ' because there is no vinegar so 
sour as religious vinegar. But religious vinegar 
never attracts sinners. 

Once in a country district in England where 
bee-keeping w r as largely carried on, a Church 
was started and sustained by honey. Instead of 
subscribing so many shillings or pence a week, 
each family subscribed so many pounds of honey 
a week. What a lovely Church that must have 
been! But the system will work very well if 
added on to our own. Every member of the 
Church ought to feel himself under sacred obli- 
gation to furnish his proportion of the honey to 
sweeten the social and spiritual life of the con- 
gregation. 

Then, there is the sw T ollen tongue. It is 
usually caused by an overgrowth of selfishness. 
Two peddlers meet in a narrow street. One is 
a big man with a wheelbarrow, and the other is a 



Conditions of a Fragrant Life. 33 

boy, also with a wheelbarrow. " Out of my way !" 
shouts the man, with a look and a tone that adds 
plainly enough, "I will make you do so, if you 
do n't do it willingly." So, with groans and 
struggling, the boy manages to get his heavy 
load of oranges lifted half up on the curbstone, 
leaving the path clear for the big burly tyrant. 
But this "out of the way" order runs through 
all our business life, wherever the strong drives 
the weak to the wall. We need to watch our- 
selves constantly to keep from becoming selfish 
tyrants toward those who are weaker than we. 

The swollen tongue often destroys the happi- 
ness of home-life, breaks the sweet communion 
which ought ever to exist between husband and 
wife. A recent writer, who subscribes himself 
"A Graduate in the University of Matrimony," 
urges us to make the most of the happiness 
of marriage, and the least of its vexations, by 
the thought that this relation can not last 
long. Over the triple doorways of the white 
marble cathedral of Milan, there are three in- 
scriptions spanning the splendid arches. Over 
one is carved a beautiful wreath of roses, and 
underneath is the legend, "All that which pleases 
is only for a moment." Over the other is a 
sculptured cross, and there are the words, "All 



3 4 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



that which troubles is but for a moment." Over 
the great central entrance, in the middle aisle, 
is the inscription, "That only is which is 
eternal." 

How kindly should husbands and wives use 
each other when they think of the brevity of 
life! Mr. Froude assures us that Thomas Car- 
lyle never meant to be unkind to his wife ; but in 
his late years he thought that he had sacrificed 
her health and happiness in his absorption in 
his work; that he had been negligent, inconsid- 
erate, and selfish; and for many years after she 
had left him, when he passed the spot where 
she was last seen alive, he would bare his gray 
head, even in the wind and rain, his features 
wrung with unavailing sorrow 7 , exclaiming: "O 
if I could but see her for five minutes, to assure 
her that I really cared for her throughout all 
that! But she never knew it, she never 
knew it!" 

Ah ! brothers and sisters, let us not be plait- 
ing scourges for ourselves. " These hurrying 
days, these busy, anxious, shrewd, ambitious 
times of ours, are worse than wasted when they 
take our hearts away from patient gentleness, 
and give us fame for love, and gold for kisses. 
Some day, when our hungry souls seek for bread, 



CONDITIONS OF A FRAGRANT LlFE. 35 

our selfish god will give us a stone. Life is 
not a deep, profound, perplexing problem; it is a 
simple, easy lesson, such as any child may read. 
You can not find its solution in the ponderous 
tomes of the old fathers, the philosophers, or the 
theorists. It is not on your book-shelves; but in 
the warmest corner of the most unlettered heart, 
it glows in letters that the blind may read — a 
sweet, plain, simple, easy, loving lesson. " And 
if you will learn it, home, business, church, and 
all life about you, will be the happier and the 
better for it. 

Then, there is the tainted tongue. Every 
thing it touches loses its freshness, its sweetness, 
and its purity. It is to be shunned as you would 
shun a contagion. The grape-growers in Califor- 
nia have an ingenious contrivance. They have 
what they call a "frost-bell," which is the means 
of saving many thousands of tons of grapes in the 
northern portion of California, where the frost 
sometimes does so much damage. It consists of 
wires running from different parts of the vine- 
yard to the house. On the vineyard end of these 
wires is an apparatus that rings a bell at the house 
when the thermometer descends to a certain de- 
gree. When the bell is let off, the occupants of 
the house know that their vines are in danger 



36 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

and immediately repair to the vineyard, and light 
fires in different quarters, and thus prevent, 
through the agency of this electrical device, the 
loss of much of the most delicious fruit that 
grows on the Pacific Coast. 

We need to keep our thoughts and purposes 
so sensitive to the spirit of righteousness that 
the cold breath of an impure tongue will ring 
all the alarm-bells of conscience at its first ap- 
proach. One of the best anecdotes I ever heard 
of General Grant was one related by General 
Clinton B. Fisk, who said he was once sitting 
with the general and a number of others, when 
an officer high in rank rushed in. u O boys, I've 
such a good story to tell you! There are no 
ladies present, I believe?" "No; but there are 
gentlemen present," was the curt reply of Grant. 
The story was not told. 

There is another characteristic of a Christian 
tongue which we must not overlook. It is a 
milk tongue. It not only pleases the palate, it 
feeds also. In contrast to a gossipy, frivolous, 
chalk- and- water tongue, it is a genuine milk 
tongue. 

The frivolous, personal, gossipy grade of the 
average conversation among good people who 
mean no harm, is to be greatly deplored. Many 



Conditions of a Fragrant Life. 37 



of the bitter slanders which cause so much sor- 
row, start not in malice, but in this frivolous 
sort of conversation. The whole plane of con- 
versation needs lifting up, in many circles. It 
is one of the most important duties of the Chris- 
tian of to-day to help in this matter by personal 
example. Some poet sings: 

"Men ask, 'What news?' and book and paper scan 
For 1 latest tidings ' of their fellow-man ; 
And each new bit of floating gossip read, 
And still as eager, search for more with greed. 
News more important one can never find — 
News that informs and satisfies the mind — 
As tidings of one's self. Where, in the line 
Of things progressive, is this sonl of mine? 
Where, midst the whirl, the jar, the hnm of life, 
Its dull routine, or never ending strife 
Of man with fellow-man, my place I hold? 
1 News ' more ' important ' never can be told. 
What was my last best thought ? W T hat new desire 
Or new ambition doth my soul inspire? 
What is my sounding in life's treach'rous stream? 
What speed is making? Is there yet a gleam 
Of light that sparkles on the distant shore ? 
Are dangers near? W 7 as that the breaker's roar? 
How heads the bark? What headlands are in view? 
Such tidings to my soul are always new; 
And such my interested soul decides 
Are more 1 important news ' than all besides." 

Conversation ought to be made more earnest. 
I am convinced that most Christians indulge too 
little in direct religious conversation. How often 



38 



He a i t enl y Trade - winds. 



Christian people — those who are seeking to know 
perfectly the will of God — meet one another, 
and yet, during a long conversation, the subject 
of religion enters no way into their exchange 
of thought. I am sure we rob ourselves very 
greatly in this. We might often kindle into life 
and flame the smoking flax of Christian devo- 
tion by free and friendly conversation with each 
other. It is related of Bishop Ussier and Dr. 
Preston, that always before they parted one 
would say to the other: "Come, good Doctor, let 
us talk now a little of Jesus Christ/' Or the 
Doctor said: "Come, my Lord Bishop, let me hear 
vour orace talk of the goodness of God with 
your wonted eloquence; let us warm each other's 
hearts with heaven, that we may the better bear 
this cold world.' 1 

To be able to be of use to the world by the 
sweet and helpful influence of our conversation, 
we must hold frequent converse with heaven; 
"for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh." 

It is related that when General Charles 
George Gordon was in the Soudan, there was each 
morning one half-hour during which there lay 
outside the closed door of his tent a white hand- 
kerchief. The whole camp knew the full sig- 



Conditions of a Fragraxt Life. 39 



nificance of the small token, and most religiously 
was it respected by all there, whatever was their 
color, creed, or business. Xo foot dared to enter 
the tent so guarded. No message, however 
pressing, was carried in. Whatever it was, of 
life or death, it had to wait until the guardian 
signal was removed. Everv one knew that God 
and Gordon were alone in there together; that 
the servant prayed and communed, and that the 
Master heard and answered. Into the heart so 
opened the presence of God came down and 
filled his life with strange power, because his 
heart was the dwelling-place of God. So your 
tongue will abound in milk with which to feed 
hungry souls, when you daily hold communion 
with Him who speaks " as never man spake.- ' 

Finally, we have only time to note for a mo- 
ment the result of such a conversation upon the 
general influence of the life itself. This is ex- 
pressed in a very beautiful picture painted in the 
words, "The smell of thy garments is like the 
smell of Lebanon. " The beauty of the illustra- 
tion will grow upon you by reflection. Lebanon 
was noted for its great cedar-forest. Were you 
ever, on a summer day, permitted to stroll through 
a forest of heaven-aspiring cedar-trees, reaching 
out their branches far and wide; the sunshine 



4o Heavenly Trade-winds. 

* 

sprinkling down here and there through the 
leaves; squirrels chattering up near the trunks of 
the trees, cracking their nuts between their paws, 
while they cracked jokes at each other; birds 
singing, and building their nests as they sing in 
the shady, overhanging boughs; and above all, 
and glorifying all, the fragrance, sweet and in- 
vigorating, giving you new life and hope as you 
took long draughts into your refreshed lungs? 
Brother, in the heart of God there is a picture of 
you and of me, like that. Not a poor, sickly, 
stunted, dwarfed plant. God sees in us the pos- 
sibility of becoming like the great cedars, full 
of shade and comfort and fragrance for every 
weary and tired brother or sister who passes 
our way. 

There is only one way to be sure that the 
garments will smell sweet, and that is to give 
them an abundance of heavenly sunshine. How 
'soon Lebanon, with its great cedars, would have 
been covered with moss and mold and unwhole- 
some vapors, if the sun had ceased to shine upon 
it! So only the sunshine reflected from the face 
of Jesus Christ can keep fresh and sweet our 
human lives. 

A visitor went one cold day to see a poor girl, 
kept at home by a lame hip. The room was on 



Conditions of a Fragraxt Life. 41 

the north side of a bleak house. It was not 
pleasant without, and in many ways was very 
cheerless within. Poor girl! she seemed to have 
very little to cheer and comfort her, and as the 
visitor entered the room, the first thought was : " If 
she had only a sunny room on the south side of 
the house !" Thinking of this, her visitor said: 
"You never have any sun; not a ray comes into 
these windows. Sunshine is everything. I wish 
you could have a little." "O," the young girl 
answered, "my Sun pours in at every window, 
and even through the cracks. All the light I 
want is Jesus. He shines in here, and makes 
everything bright to me." And no one could 
doubt her who saw the sweet smile of happiness 
on her upturned face. Yes! Jesus "the Sun of 
righteousness," shining in, can make any spot 
beautiful and any home happy. That sunshine 
can make your lips to drop sweetness as the 
honeycomb, your tongue to yield both honey and 
milk, and the smell of your garments to be like 
the smell of Lebanon. 

4 



III. 



THE THIRST OF LIFE AND ITS SATISFACTION. 

" Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not." — John iy, i 5. 
HPHIS is the climax to the story of a poor, sin- 



1 ful woman, who found Christ and salvation 
through the doorway of a simple kindness to a 
weary, thirsty, wayside traveler. 

There is in Italy a fountain, over which is the 
statue of a beggar drinking at a spring. It is 
called "The Beggar's Fountain,'' and this is its 
story: Once upon a time there lived a very proud 
and haughty man who hated the poor, and set 
himself above all the world who were not as 
wealthy and well dressed as himself, and his 
want of charity was so great that it had become 
proverbial. A beggar would no more have 
thought of asking bread at his gate than of ask- 
ing him for his fortune. 

There was a spring on his land, a sweet spring 
of cold water, and it was the only one for miles. 
Many a wayfarer paused to drink at it, but was 
never permitted to do so. A servant was kept 
upon the watch to drive such persons away. 
Now, there had never been known before any one 




The Thirst of Life. 



43 



so avaricious as to refuse a cup of cold water to 
his fellow-inen, and the angels, talking among 
themselves, could not believe it. One of them 
said to the rest: 

"It is impossible for any but Satan himself ! 
I will go to earth, and prove that it is not true." 

And so this fair and holy angel disguised her- 
self as a beggar-woman, covered her golden hair 
with a black hood, and chose the moment when 
the master of the house was himself standing 
near the spring to come slowly up the road, and 
to pause beside the fountain, and humbly ask for 
a draught of its sweet water. 

Instantly the servant who guarded the spot 
refused; but the angel, desiring to take news of 
a good deed, not of an evil one, back to heaven, 
went up to the master himself, and said: 

"I am, as you see, a wanderer from afar. See 
how poor are my garments, how stained from 
travel! It is not surely at your bidding that 
your servant forbids me to drink; and even as it 
is, I pray you bid him let me drink, for I am 
very thirsty." 

The rich man looked at her with scornful 
eyes, and said: 

"This is not a public fountain; you will find 
one in the next village." 



44 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



"The way is long," pleaded the angel, "and 
I am a woman, and weak." 

"Drive her away!" said the rich man, and as 
he spoke the beggar turned; but on the instant 
her black hood dropped from her head, and re- 
vealed floods of rippling golden hair; her un- 
seemly rags fell to the ground, and the shimmer- 
ing robes that angels wear shone in their place. 
For a moment she hovered, poised on purple 
wings, with her hands folded on her bosom, and 
ineffable sweetness of sorrow in her eyes; then, 
with a gush of music and a flood of perfume, she 
vanished. 

The servant fell to the earth like one dead. 
The rich man trembled and cried out; for he 
knew he had forbidden a cup of cold water to an 
angel, and a horror possessed his soul. 

Almost instantly a terrible thirst fell upon 
him, which nothing could assuage. In vain he 
drank wines, sherbets, draughts of all pleasing 
kinds. Nothing could slake his thirst. The 
sweet water of the spring was Salter to him than 
the sea. He who never in his life had known 
an ungratified desire, now experienced the tor- 
ture of an ever-unsatisfied longing; but through 
this misery he began to understand what he had 
done. He repented his cruelty to the poor; 



The Thirst of Life. 



45 



alms were given daily at his gate ; charity was 
the business of his life. The fountain was no 
longer guarded, and near it hung a cup ready 
for any one who chose to use it; but the curse, if 
curse it was, was not lifted. 

The rich man — young when the angel visited 
him — grew middle-aged, elderly, old, still tor- 
tured by this awful thirst, despite his prayers and 
repentance. He had broken bread for the most 
miserable beggars who came -to his door. 

And at eighty years of age, bowed with years 
of infirmity and weary of his life, he sat beside 
the fountain weeping; and lo! along the road he 
saw approaching a beggar-woman, hooded in 
black, and walking over the stones with bare 
feet. Slowly she came, and paused beside the 
fountain. 

"May I drink?" she asked. 

"There is none to forbid thee," said the old 
man, trembling. "Drink, poor woman. Once 
an angel was forbidden here, but that time has 
passed. Drink, and pray for one athirst. Here 
is the cup." 

The woman knelt over the fountain and filled 
the cup; but instead of putting it to her own 
lips, she presented it to those of the old man. 

"Drink, then," she cried, " and thirst no more !" 



46 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



The old man took the cup and emptied it. 
0, blessed draught ! With it the torture of years 
departed, and as he drank it he praised Heaven ; 
and, lifting his eyes once more, he saw the beg- 
gar's hood drop to the ground, and her rags fall 
in pieces. For a moment she stood revealed in 
all her beauty of golden hair and silvery raiment. 
She stretched her hand toward him as if in 
blessing, and then, rising, vanished in the skies. 
A strain of music lingered, a perfume filled the 
air, and those who came there soon after found 
the old man praying beside the spring. 

Before he died he built the fountain from 
w r hich the spring gushes, and it has been given 
to the poor forever. 

Such is the story of u The Beggar's Foun- 
tain," and it, as well as the story of Jacob's Well, 
ought to lead us to value every opportunity of 
serving the Master in the person of our brothers 
and sisters. 

We have suggested in our study the unsatis- 
fying nature of worldly things. Men who have 
drunk the cup of worldly ambition — whether of 
riches or power or pleasure — to the very dregs, 
have found yet within them something which, 
like the two daughters of the horse-leech, spoken 
of in Proverbs, continues to cry, "Give! give!" 



The Thirst of Life. 



47 



Many another debauchee, like Belshazzar, has 
had all the intoxicating pleasure of the feast 
driven away by the handwriting on the wall. 

Chrysostom tells the story of a prisoner who 
said: "O, if I had but liberty, I would desire no 
more!" He had it, and then cried: "If I had 
enough for necessity, I would desire no more." 
He had it, and then cried: "Had I a little for 
variety, I would desire no more." He had it, 
and then cried: "Had I any office, were it the 
meanest, I would desire no more." He had it, 
and cried again: "Had I but a magistracy, 
though over one town only, I would desire no 
more." He had it, and then sighed: "Were I 
but a prince, I would desire no more." He had 
it, and then sighed: "Were I but a king, I would 
desire no more." He had it, and then cried: 
"Were I but an emperor, I would desire no 
more." He had it, and then exclaimed: "Were 
I but ruler of the whole world, I would then de- 
sire no more." He had it, and then he sat down, 
as Alexander, and wept that there were no more 
worlds for him to possess. And if any man 
could enjoy the possession of the whole world 
it could not satisfy him who is the son of God. 
Man's longing is fully satisfied in Christ. Christ 
satisfies us by giving us of the fountain of life 



48 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



and peace. In us, and not outside of us, is the 
real source of joy or sorrow. As St. Bernard 
said, u Nothing can work me damage but my- 
self and again: 

"Man hath no faults except past deeds; 
No hell but what he makes." 

Jesus says, "The kingdom of heaven is within 
you;" so, too, is the kingdom of hell. Heaven 
or hell — our reward or our punishment — is just 
this: 

"All that total of a soul 
Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had. 
Alone, each for himself, must we reckon with 
The fixed arithmetic of the universe, 
Which meteth good for good, ill for ill, 
Measure for measure, unto deeds, words, thoughts, 
Making one future grow from all the past." 

It is from the fountain that is within us we 
must find the water that shall slake our thirst. 
It is said of Count D'Orsay, in some ways the 
most brilliant man of a brilliant age, that, so 
bright and happy was his temperament, he never 
knew a moment's ennui, and was as much inter- 
ested in the dullest country town as in London 
at the height of the season. The resources 
within himself were always sufficient to fill life 
full of interest. 

Professor Charles Eliot Norton says of his 



The Thirst of Life. 



49 



friend James Russell Lowell, that he never grew 
old. The spirit of youth was invincible in him. 
Life battered at the defenses of youth with 
heavy artillery of trial and sorrow, but they did 
not yield. When he was sixty-two years old he 
declared that the figures were misplaced, and 
that they should read twenty-six. In one of the 
last years of his life, as he was passing a hos- 
pital for incurable children, turning to his com- 
panion, he said: "There's where they'll send 
me one of these days." He was in his sixty 
ninth year when he wrote : 

" But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet 
Lessen, like sounds of friends' departing feet. 
For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied, 
A nature sloping to the southern side." 

And to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in 
sincerity, in whose hearts he causes to spring up 
a fountain of life, God grants the sunshine of 
the southern slope, and every morning renews 
for him the daily miracle — the youth of the 
world within and without. Such a soul can 
sing, with the poet : 

" God has given me a song — 
A song of trust ; 
And I sing it all day long; 
For sing I must. 



50 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

Every hour it sweeter grows, 
Keeps my soul in blest repose; 
Just how restful no one knows 
But those who trust. 

O, I sing it on the mountain, 

In the light, 
Where the radiance of God's sunshine 

Makes all bright. 
All my path seems bright and clear, 
Heavenly land seems very near, 
And I almost do appear 

To walk by sight. 

And I sing it in the valley, 

Dark and low, 
When my heart is crushed with sorrow, 

Pain, and woe. 
Then the shadows flee away, 
Like the night when dawns the day; 
Trust in God brings light alway — 

I find it so. 

When I sing it in the desert, 

Parched and dry, 
Living streams begin to flow — 

A rich supply ; 
Verdure in abundance grows, 
Deserts blossom like a rose, 
And my heart with gladness glows, 

At God's reply." 

Not only are we ourselves blessed in such a 
richness of soul, but, like the woman of Samaria, 
we forget our water-pots, and carry the news of 
spiritual life to our friends and neighbors. How 



The Thirst of Life, 



5i 



characteristic of our holy religion to see this 
woman, in the first flush of her new-found hope 
and faith in Christ, hurrying away into the town 
to tell the men whom she met in the street 
about the Messiah, and arouse their interest and 
attention until they go out and find him for 
themselves ! I would to God that every mem- 
ber of this Church would follow this woman's 
example ! Let me put the question straight 
home to your heart: Are you doing your duty to 
your neighbor who is not a Christian? 

>l He walks beside you in the street — 
The crowded street of commonplace — 
And does but glance into your face 
A moment, when you chance to meet ; 
But eyes made wise by love can see. 
However swift his steps may be, 
He carries with him everywhere 
A weight of care. 

You have your burden, too; but yet 

It does not press at all sometimes, 

And you can hear the heavenly chimes, 
And so the weary way forget. 

You have a Friend your griefs to share, 

And listen to your softest prayer ; 
You know how safely they abide 
For whom Christ died ! 

But he has found it hard to trust ; 

For life is hard and rough to him, 

The skies above his head are dim, 
And his work lies along the dust. 



52 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



Small hope lias he to cheer his way, 
Nor light of love to make his day ; 
No heavenly music meets his ears 
Through all the years. 

He is your brother — give him love ! 

Destroy not him for whom Christ died, 

By tyranny, neglect, or pride. 
Within the Father's house above 

Is room for him and you; and here 

You well may hold your brother dear, 
Nor make the space between you wide, 
For whom Christ died. 

O, greet your brother in the street 

With friendly smile and helping hand; 
Give him his portion in the land ; 

Be good to him whene'er you meet. 
It may be through your love that he 
The Father's love and care will see ; 

Then win and keep him by your side, 
For whom Christ died." 

But I doubt not I speak to some who stand 
in this woman's place, leaning on the well-curb 
of earth's pleasures, and wishing you might have 
the better water that would slake your deep soul- 
thirst. If so, I pray God you may learn the 
lesson of her conversion, and see that confession 
of sin is necessary to salvation. How delicately 
Jesus leads this woman to open her heart to him ! 

Rev. B. Fay Mills relates that once, w T hen he 
was holding evangelistic meetings in Boston, he 
noticed an old man who had remained through 



The Thirst of Life. 



53 



the first and second meetings, and was standing 
as though hesitating whether to leave the room 
or to tarry in order to confer with others. Mr. 
Mills asked the gentleman who was assisting 
him to speak to him, and, approaching him, he 
said : 

"My friend, are you a Christian?" 

The old man said: "No, sir, I am not a Chris- 
tian, but I want to be. I have been trying all 
my life to find out how to be a Christian, but I 
have n't been able to receive any satisfaction in 
connection with my endeavors in that respect. 
I have been to Church all my life, and read the 
Bible. I have attended meetings like these, and 
and yet have received no light as to what I need 
to do in order to be a Christian. When Mr. 
Moody was here, several years ago, I attended 
almost all of his meetings, and talked with him 
and others personally, and when the meetings 
were done, I was as far away as ever. Now, I 
do n't suppose it is of any use, but I would be 
very glad if you would tell me what I need to 
do in order that I might become a Christian. " 

The gentleman said to him: "Have you ever 
confessed Christ with your lips?" 

The old man said: "No; I have been waiting 
to become a Christian before I should do that." 



54 



He a venl y Trade - winds. 



"That is just the way to become a Christian;" 
and the worker quoted a passage from Paul's 
letter to the Romans, which says: u The word is 
nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, 
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that 
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt 
be saved. For with the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confes- 
sion is made unto salvation." After quoting 
this Scripture the Christian man said: "I be- 
lieve you need to commence to-night, with an 
open acknowledgment of Christ as your Master." 

The old man said: " It is too late to do it to- 
night, for the service has been dismissed." 

The gentleman looked about the room, where 
there were about a dozen persons tarrying, and 
said: " Suppose you confess Christ to these peo- 
ple who are now in this room." 

After a moment's hesitation, the old man 
walked down the room, and held out his hand 
to a man whom he knew, and said: "Mr. W., I 
want to confess Christ to you;" and then he 
went to others and said practically, the same 
thing. At last he came to Mr. Mills, who told 
him not to let the adversary make him think 
that he had not commenced the Christian life 



The Thirst of Life, 



55 



that night, but to count the matter settled, and 
to think of himself as a follower of Christ. 

The next morning, at the opening of the 
ten o'clock service, the old gentleman was seated 
on the front seat, and with him was another man 
about seventy-five years of age. The first man 
came to Mr. Mills, and said: 

"I have brought a friend to the meeting this 
morning. He is a little hard of hearing. Will 
you please speak out so that he can hear ; and 
be sure to say something about confessing Christ. 
I found the light that way, and I want my friend 
here to confess Christ, too." 

Before the day was done, the second old man 
had risen in the meeting to express his intention 
of being a follower of Christ; and after that it 
was a joy to see the two old men, side by side, 
with their faces beaming with the satisfaction 
that was brought to them by their new life. 

If there are any here to-night who have all 
their lifetime known the story of Christ and his 
love and sacrifice for them, and yet have never 
openly confessed him as their Savior, I hope you 
will not go away from the house to-night without 
an open, frank, grateful confession of your great 
debt to him. Accept him, here and now, as your 
personal Savior. 



IV. 



A NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHRISTIAN. 



" For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath ap- 
peared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness 
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and 
godly, in this present age." (Marginal rendering.) — 
Titus ii, 11-12. 

r ~PHIS first sentence is like the trump of ju- 



A bilee; it is the paean of Christianity: u For 
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath 
appeared to all men." It is as triumphant as 
the springtime in its conquest over the winter; 
when sunshine and showers and caressing 
winds manifest the grace of God toward the 
earth; that bringeth springtime and summer to 
hill and valley and forest. So, in the coming of 
Jesus Christ to the world and in the preaching 
of his gospel, the grace of God, that bringeth 
salvation from sin, hath appeared unto all men. 

There are three great elements of a strong, 
full life given in this Scripture. The first is so- 
briety. 

It is declared that we are taught to live so- 
berly. This has relation to one's own self. It 




A Nineteenth- century Christian 



57 



means that I am to take my life as an intense, 
earnest reality; regard it as something of impor- 
tance, worth caring for and guarding with the 
greatest fidelity. Our estimate of the value or 
importance of our human living depends upon the 
measure we put on ourselves. I do not mean 
some petty egotism or conceit, but the estimate 
we have of human life ; whether it be insignifi- 
cant, or large and splendid; whether we think 
of ourselves as human animals struggling for a 
day, or children of God, building for the eter- 
nities. 

The sober life regards the divinity within it- 
self, and is unshackled from the narrow, cruel 
slaveries of fashion. The soul that is truly free 
and enlarged by a just conception of its own su- 
preme worth will create its own conditions. It 
levels the walls of conventionalism, as Joshua, 
with seven blasts of a ram's horn, overthrew the 
walls of Jericho. 

Carlyle said that the true meaning of life is 
to unfold one's self. What unsuspected resources 
lie hidden away in many of our souls as the gold- 
mines are hidden in the quartz of the great 
mountains, unknown and unsuspected for thou- 
sands of years! It is the glory of our divine 
Christianity that it is forever fighting against 

5 



58 



He a vexl y Trade - winds. 



the mere huddling together of men and women 
like sheep, but teaches that each one of us is, 
distinctly and personally, the child of God. 
This clearly-defined individuality gives character 
to any age. The laws of society are never so 
sacred as the laws of one's own being. Some 
one says: " However mean your life is, meet 
and live it; do not shun it and call it bad names. 
Love your life, poor as it is." 

To be one's own self, living in an atmosphere 
of God's care and presence, is a thousand times 
better than being an imitation of anybody that 
ever lived. Who would change the ugliest face 
that any man or woman ever carried for a 
painted mask ? There has not been in all history, 
perhaps, a homelier face than Abraham Lincoln's; 
neither has there been one more universally 
trusted and loved. He who is faithful and 
obedient to that divine spark of personality 
which God has given to him, may brave all the 
opposition of the world, and may even turn his 
foes to good account. Clarinda, when cast into 
the jungle by Arsetes, was suckled by a tiger ; 
and so the tigers, that seem to thirst for your 
blood, will become your nursing mothers when, 
with all frankness and self-devotion, you abandon 
yourself to be the true child of God. 



A Nineteenth-century Christian. 59 

The second characteristic of this new, strong 
life is righteousness. It is specially stated that 
we are to live righteously. 

This has relation to our fellow-men. The 
well-rounded man is one who first takes his own 
manhood seriously, does not believe that God 
made him to be a mere copy of somebody else; 
and in relation to his fellows, he is righteous; that 
is, he holds himself rightly tow r ard them. He 
does the right in dealing with them. In decid- 
ing what his attitude to his neighbor is to be, 
his first and last question, all decisive, is, What 
is right? Having found that, he seeks no farther. 
His life is thus open and transparent. 

In the cathedral of St. Mark's in Venice — in 
many ways one of the most beautiful buildings 
in the world, and lustrous with an Oriental splen- 
dor that is beyond all description — there are sev- 
eral pillars that are said to have been brought 
from Solomon's temple. They are of alabaster, 
a substance that is as firm and durable as gran- 
ite, but is so transparent that the light glows 
through them. Our lives should be lived so 
righteously; they should be so open and frank, 
so ignorant of tortuous and deceptive ways, that 
we shall not only be strong pillars in the temple 
of our God and in the Church on earth, but 



6o Heavenly Trade-winds. 



shall be so transparent and open-hearted that the 
Sim of righteousness, shining on us, may glow 
through us to enlighten the world. 

The third element which enters into this ideal 
life which is described in our text is godliness. 
We are to live godly lives. 

This has regard to our religion, to our rela- 
tion to God. The full-rounded Christian man 
stands not only in his right relation to his fel- 
lows respecting his own nature, but he stands 
in harmonious relation to God. He lives not 
only soberly and righteously, but godly — trust- 
ing not in his own righteousness, but in humility 
accepting the righteousness of Jesus Christ 
which God has prepared. 

See how Paul puts it in the third chapter of 
Philippians: "But what things were gain to me, 
those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, 
and I count all things but loss for the excellency 
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord: for 
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, 
and do count them but dung, that I may win 
Christ, and be found in him, not having mine 
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that 
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteous- 
ness which is of God by faith. " How important 
is this right relation to God! The illustrations 



A Nineteenth-century Christian. 6i 



are everywhere. A branch must be in right re- 
lation to the vine, or it will not bear fruit. 

If you apply to have your life insured, the 
physician who examines you inquires, not only 
into your present condition and concerning any 
sickness you may have had, but he wants to 
know about your relations. He makes inquiry 
concerning your parents. If they are dead, he 
wants to know when and of what they died, and 
also about your brothers and sisters. He does 
not judge your case simply on its own merits, 
but takes into it your relation to the family stock 
in which you are found, and will put to your 
credit any good qualities that are found in it, or 
condemn you, however strong you may be, by 
setting to your discredit any diseased conditions 
that are found in your parentage. So God esti- 
mates us in relation to himself and to his Son 
Jesus Christ. Shall we not seriously ask our- 
selves this morning, each one for himself, What 
is my relation to God? 

We are to live soberly toward ourselves, 
righteously toward our wives and children, our 
neighbors, our employers or our employees, and 
in humble faith and obedience to God here and 
now. But the thought that I intended should 
leave its impress on all my message in the 



62 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



closing phrase of the Scripture we are studying : 
il Jn this present age" in the city of Brooklyn, 
in the year of our Lord 1894. 

An essential part of the Christian life is its 
relation to its own time. It must be a life in 
this world as well as a life in eternity. I fear 
that many people lose the keen edge of these 
great Scriptures by somehow relegating them to 
a different age and time. They think it was all 
right for Paul to talk about living soberly, right- 
eously, and godly, in those old times of his, but 
that it is impracticable to expect such a thing 
to-day. They say to themselves, " Would the 
apostle have said this if he had lived now? Is 
this a good time for a sober, righteous life? Can 
a man expect to be a man of this present age, 
moved by its tendencies, marked by its traits, 
and yet with a well-rounded Christian charac- 
ter?" A recent writer says that it is right here 
we meet one of the most common and most en- 
feebling heresies of our own time — the im- 
pression that this is not a good time for a sober, 
righteous, and godly life; a sort of letting down 
of one's soul to agree that the spirit of the age 
is against these things. " Business standards," 
it is said, "are relaxing, home habits loose, 



A Nineteenth-century Christian 63 

self-seeking the common rule, plain living and 
high thinking not the custom of the time." 

In such a state of mind two things seem pos- 
sible. One is to yield to the pressure of the age, 
and change our standards so that they are in- 
consistent with the Christian life, and which the 
conscience can never approve. We see that re- 
alized in daily life all about us. That is the 
common worldliness of the present age. The 
other thing which some people try to do is to run 
away from the age. Thousands of the choicest 
souls have been doing that throughout all Chris- 
tian history. They have thought it impossible to 
live a sober life against the current of wicked- 
ness surrounding them, and so they have fled 
from its influence, hiding themselves in monas- 
teries, and peopling the desert with their hermit 
caves. . No one can survey the story of these 
ascetics and hermits without a glow of admira- 
tion. It is a great thing that the enticements of 
each age which have overpowered so many souls 
have been powerless over a few. But none the 
less this wdiole story is not the story of a battle, 
but of a flight. These people were simply 
afraid of their own times, while the great body 
of men had to fight the battle without them. 



6 4 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



It was a flight based not on faith, but on faith- 
lessness, on the doctrine that God had deserted 
his world, and that to find him they must desert 
it also. And it was a fruitless flight. Fleeing 
from the world, they fled from all the chance 
they had to make it better. 

A traveler, writing in the Cliristicui Register 
not long since, says he once stood on a little 
point of the Upper Nile where the first Christian 
hermit gathered his first disciples. Among those 
drifting sand-hills, in rude caves and dens, once 
lived a thousand holy men and women, drawn 
from the wealth, beauty, and learning of the 
world; and now, as one stands there, there is 
nothing left to show for all their Christian im- 
pulses and dreams. Xo monument of charity; 
no contribution to learning; no noble church, 
hospital, or school, — nothing done to redeem the 
time in which they lived remains for their me- 
morial. The traveler stands there in a vast soli- 
tude, and sees across the ocean of sand nothing 
but the rippled surface of their unnumbered 
graves. 

Surely, then, it is a pertinent question that if 
the sober, righteous, and godly man is not to 
yield himself to the present age and become its 
victim, or not to flee from it, what is he to do? 



A Nineteenth- century Christian. 65 



The answer is very simple. It comes alike from 
Scripture, from history, from present observation, 
and from the depths of every normal conscience. 
He is to use the present age — to take it just as 
it is — as the material out of which he is to de- 
velop a Christian character fit for this clay in 
which we live. Here is a potter working in his 
clay. It is a coarse material, and his hands grow 
soiled in molding it; but he neither rejects it be- 
cause it is not clean, nor dabbles in it like a child 
for the mere sake of getting dirty. He takes it 
just as it is, and works out the shapes of beauty 
which are possible under the laws and limitations 
of the clay. 

This present age in which we live furnishes 
us material just like that. It is not very clean. 
In business there are shams, humbugs, oppres- 
sions, cruelties, and frauds that make every true 
man boil with indignation again and again ; but 
the business of the world is not to be given over 
to the devil because of that. In society there 
are hypocrisies, impurities, and scandals from 
which every true man and woman revolts. In 
both business and society there are things that 
are soiling to one's touch; and if that is true 
there, what must one say about politics, after the 
stench of Tammany Hall has filled the atmos- 



66 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



phere with a malaria more deadly than any pesti- 
lent swamp, — politics, with its greed, with its 
struggling, bribing trusts from sugar to whisky, 
and from matches to standard oil ; politics, where 
Legislatures and Congresses have seemed, on 
many occasions in recent years, to have no sense 
of decency, and no motive save personal greed? 

Surely, here are things in business and so- 
ciety and politics, that soil the fingers. What is 
the duty of Christian men and women under 
such circumstances? The teaching of our text 
is plain. It is their duty to live godly, sober, 
righteous lives in the midst of all that is evil in 
this present age of our own. We are not to wash 
our hands of the age, nor yet to surrender to its 
evil. We are to take hold upon the very condi- 
tions of this age as the material out of which to 
mold a new type of moral beauty. It is easy 
enough to run away from the tendencies of our 
own time, and it is easier still to yield to its evil; 
but to be in the world, yet not of it, putting a 
strong, clean hand upon business, on society, or 
politics, molding its material, yet not defiled by 
it, — that is the real problem of the present age, 
and one has said that here lies a new type of 
Christian character. The saints of the past have 
been, for the most part, those who have fled from 



A Nineteenth-century Christian. 67 



the world; but the Christian saint of to-day is 
the person who can use the world and master it 
for the glory of God. 

Such a person may be all unconscious that he 
is doing anything heroic. He is simply the man 
in the business world who, amid looseness and 
dishonor, keeps himself true and clean. The 
woman, amid luxury and affectation, and the 
poor shams of social life, with its heartless cruel- 
ties, who keeps her sympathy and her simplicity. 
It is a harder thing to do these things than to be 
a hermit, and fully as noble as to be a saint. It 
is the sober, righteous, and godly life lived amidst 
this present age. 

The world needs just that type of Christian- 
ity. As one looks out over these great cities, 
and beholds everywhere the selfishness and wick- 
edness which seem to wither many green trees 
of promise, leaving only the barren sand of 
worldliness, it is as if one stood beside some 
great Western plain, with its ashy-looking plateau 
soil, and its monotonous greasewood clumps 
here and there, seeming to have no possibilities 
for the production of real agricultural growth ; 
but, after all, that wide-stretching, monotonous 
plain, burning under the hot sun, is only waiting 
for the shrewd and devoted engineer who shall 



68 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



bring from far-off mountain canons the water 
that shall irrigate its dry and barren plains, sat- 
urating the soil and making the wide-reaching 
plateau to become, like Damascus, the garden of 
the Lord. 

So this age, which we look out upon, is like 
that. There never was a time when so many in- 
terests called for consecrated help, and where 
generous, self-denying self-abandonment for the 
benefit of humanity counted for so much. This 
restless, inventive, nervous time of ours, when 
everybody is an interrogation point; when every 
one is looking for and expecting something new ; 
when men are breaking over the old ruts in 
every department of human life, — surely there 
never could be a time when the water of life, 
poured out upon the souls of men, could so re- 
fresh and comfort them as now. To follow the 
figure which we have been using, we who trust 
God, and love him, and want to do his will and 
bring about his kingdom upon the earth, must 
climb the lofty mountain-tops and keep in close 
communion with heaven. 

In secret prayer, in studying God's Word, in 
holy meditation, we must so prepare our hearts 
that our lives shall be irrigating streams of 



A Nineteenth-century Christian. 69 



Heaven's benevolence to all the thirsty world 
about us. And thus we may become the chan- 
nels of communication between the throne of 
God and those barren hearts which threaten 
to make a desert of this present age. 



V. 



A GREAT DOOR AND MANY ADVERSARIES. 

" I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost ; for a great door 
and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many ad- 
versaries." — i Cor. xvi, 8, 9. 

THE reason which Paul gives for staying at 
Ephesus suggests the character of the man. 
He wanted to stay because there was a great op- 
portunity to fight the devil. A less spiritual 
man would not have seen the great door which 
was open for him. A less courageous and faith- 
ful man, despite the open door, would have been 
anxious to run away when he saw the many ad- 
versaries confronting him. These are the two 
great reasons he gives for desiring to remain — 
an open field, and a great struggle in prospect. 
They appealed to Paul because his own soul was 
sensitive to spiritual opportunity. If he had 
been less alert, he would not have perceived the 
opportunity at all. It is that alert, sensitive con- 
dition of the soul which, above all, we need to 
pray for and seek to develop in ourselves. 

Some one says very truly, "The greatest foe 

to the Church is dry rot." No opposition from 

70 



A Great Door axd Many Adversaries. 71 

outside can possibly be so fatal to vigorous spirit- 
ual life within us as indifference and lethargy of 
soul on our own part. A lack of interest brings 
paralysis and death. The Savior declared that 
where the treasure is, there will the heart be also. 
It is also true that where the heart is, there will the 
treasure follow, and it is a very fair judgment to 
measure our interest in any cause by the amount 
of earnest activity which we give to it. If our 
hearts are all aglow with devotion to Christ, an 
opportunity for work for him in the salvation of 
souls will arouse our enthusiasm and draw our 
devoted attention, as Franklin's kite drew the 
lightning from the threatening clouds. 

If, like Paul, we are seeking for open doors 
where we may proclaim the glad message of sal- 
vation, the Holy Spirit will be able to direct us, 
and we shall be susceptible to his guidance. 
Alas! too many times our minds and hearts are so 
filled with worldly ambitions that the din of 
the world's noise drowns the still small voice 
that would speak to our hearts. A traveler re- 
lates that during a musical service held last sum- 
mer in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, it was no- 
ticed that the clock apparently did not strike 
eight. It did strike, however. The reason it 
did not sound was due to a little forethought. 



72 



He a venl y Trade - winds. 



Bach's " Passion" was being performed in the ca- 
thedral. A church-clock has the awkward habit 
of striking at very inconvenient moments, often 
entirely spoiling the effect of quiet passages. 
So some young men mounted the bell-tower, and 
took the liberty of tying a cushion to the bell- 
hammer, which thus fell without noise. 

So there are many of us who need, above 
everything else, to have a cushion tied on the 
bell-hammer of worldly things during the hours 
of every day which we ought to give to the wor- 
ship of God and to meditation upon spiritual 
things. No man can afford to let worldly inter- 
ests, however important they may be, keep him 
from such communion with the Throne of Grace 
that he shall be sensitive to spiritual opportuni- 
ties from day to day. 

"For lacking this no man hath health, 
And lacking this no man hath wealth; 
For land is trash, and gold is dross, 
Success is failure, gain is loss, 
Unless there lives in the human soul, 
As hither and thither its passions roll, 
Toss'd on the waves of this mortal sea, 
A hope, and a trust, and a will and a faith, 
That is stronger than life, and stronger than death, 
And equal to eternity." 

Paul says that there was open to him in Ephe- 
sus a great door and effectual, but it became ef- 



A Great Door and Many Adversaries. 73 

fectual through his own exertions. He made it 
effectual, because he entered it with devoted 
courage and confidence in God. 

Out on the great Western cattle-ranches the 
traveler sees, every little while, an ingenious de- 
vice for watering cattle. An inclined plane leads 
up to a platform along which a trough extends. 
Nowhere in sight is there any hint of water, 
either in well or spring or running brook ; but 
beneath the platform is a living spring connected 
with the trough by hidden pipes, so arranged 
that the water w T ill flow only when a heavy 
weight presses upon the platform. 

A thirsty cow comes along, and looks wist- 
fully at the suggestive trough. Alas! it is dry. 
She goes far enough up the inclined plane to be 
convinced of the unwelcome fact, and turns reluc- 
tantly away. Another comes, a gentle creature, 
tired and thirsty. She is not turned back by the 
sight of an empty trough. Perhaps she is say- 
ing to herself, u Where there is so nice a trough, 
there must be water." So she presses boldly 
forward; and, lo! as she steps full upon the plat- 
form, there is a welcome sound of overflowing 
water, and the trough is filled with the pure 
stream, all because the persevering cow did not 
stop at impossibilities, but walked by faith and not 

6 



74 



Heavenly Trade-winds, 



by sight. How many opportunities to do service 
for God are barren because we do not press toward 
them with persevering and faithful hearts ! 

It is only by living in daily communion with 
God that our eyes are clear to behold opportuni- 
ties for divine service. If I address any this 
morning who have once known this communion, 
but have lost it, and are living lives dull and 
cold, out of touch with the Holy Spirit, I pray 
that some message in the sermon this morning 
may arouse you to a new consecration of your- 
selves to God. 

The president of a city bank who was also a 
sincere Christian, and one who was ever ready to 
turn a listening ear to a cry of a soul for light, 
however pressing his business duties might be, 
was interrupted one morning by a mechanic of 
his acquaintance, who entered his office, evi- 
dently borne down bv a heavy burden. His first 
remark was, " I am bad off; I'm broke. I must 
have help." Of course the banker expected to 
be asked for pecuniary aid. u Tell me what you 
need. Are you in financial straits?" " Worse 
than that," was the reply; "I am a spiritual 
bankrupt;" and tears and sobs shook the strong 
man as he sat, the personification of grief, in the 
presence of his friend. 



A Great Door and Many Adversaries. 75 

The story he told has its thousands of coun- 
terparts. "Myself and wife," said he, "are 
members of the Church. We have not been in- 
side its walls for a long time. I have drifted out 
into darkness, and I am at unrest. Will you, can 
you help me?" 

"But tell me the cause of this backsliding. 
Where did the departure begin, and what has 
brought you to me in such a condition ?" 

"Well," said he, "my little girls were at the 
Sunday-school concert last Sunday. On their 
return I asked as to the lesson of the evening. 
Their reply was, ' Prayer,' and turning to me one 
of the dear pets said, with such an appealing look: 
'Papa, you used to pray with us; why don't you 
now?' This question for three days has sounded 
in my ears day and night. I can not sleep. I 
can not rest. What shall I do?" 

" Where did you leave off?" 

"With the omission of family "prayer. At 
first morning devotions were omitted. I was in 
haste to get to my work. I excused myself be- 
cause of the lack of time. Then, at evening, I 
gradually left off the habit on the plea of weari- 
ness, or some other excuse. The neglect of 
Sabbath service followed, till at last I am here, 
with no rest, no comfort, no peace. Neither 



76 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



my myself nor wife has been to Church for 
months. " 

The practical answer of the Christian banker 
was: " Begin where you left off. Commence to- 
night. Call your family together and pray with 
them." 

"But I can not. It is far harder than at the 
first." 

"Very well; if you will not do this, you will 
have no rest; and I hope you will continue in 
this condition till you again resume the duty 
which you never should have laid aside." 

At last the promise was given. What at first 
was a burden was taken up. Duty soon became 
a pleasure, and a new spiritual atmosphere soon 
came to that household. 

Are there any representatives of families here 
this morning who need just this message? Re- 
member that religion, first of all, begins in the 
individual heart, then in the family life, and aft- 
erwards in the Church. A Church made up of 
families whose homes are temples of the living 
God, where the incense of love and gratitude 
goes up to God every day from their loving 
hearts, is all-powerful in the community. And 
the individuals going out from such a Christian 
atmosphere in the home are not only doubly 



A Great Door and Many Adversaries. 77 

shielded against temptation and sin, but are 
keen-eyed to behold open doors into which they 
mav enter as the messengers of Christ. 

Perhaps the most suggestive feature of our 
text is the second reason which Paul gives for 
remaining in Ephesus ; that is, because there are 
many adversaries. Some who see the open door, 
and are free to admit the opportunity presented 
to them for Christian work, are ready to run 
away because of the adversaries. But difficulties 
in the way only aroused Paul to greater exertion. 
If Paul had lived after the days of Isaac Watts, 
one of his favorite hymns would have been : 

"Sure I must fight, if I would reign ; 
Increase my courage, Lord ; 
I '11 bear the toil, endure the pain, 
Supported by thy word. 

Thy saints in all this glorious war 
Shall conquer, though they die : 

They see the triumph from afar, 
By faith they bring it nigh." 

As a brave general feels that the place for 
himself and his army is in the presence of the 
enemy, so Paul felt that the place above all 
others where he was needed was where there 
were many adversaries against the gospel. All 
the opposition which was brought against him 
at Ephesus, as everywhere else, tended to spread 



78 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



abroad his message, and to further the name and 
fame of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let no one of 
us shirk his duty as a witness for Christ be- 
cause of unpromising surroundings. A witness 
is most valuable where evidence is scarce, and 
does more good there than anywhere else. 

An English paper relates a very interesting 
incident of a splendid revival among the police 
of Birmingham, which was brought about mainly 
through the faithful efforts of one Christian man 
on the force. This man served his time first as 
an ordinary policeman, and after his conversion 
was so greatly troubled by the sights and sounds 
of sin among which he was compelled to work, 
that, for a long time, the constant burden of his 
own and his wife's prayer was: "Lord, take me 
out of the police! Give me some other work!" 
But no answer came, and no other work was 
opened for him. 

One evening he came home, looking very 
thoughtful, and said to his wife: "Wife, do you 
know, I think we have been making a great 
mistake? We have been praying for God to 
take me out of the force, and I begin to think 
he has put me there to work for him. Now, I 
am just going to pray that he will help me to 
serve him where I am." That was the begin- 



A Great Door and Many Adversaries. 79 

ning of a new life, and he began to watch for 
opportunities of service. He soon became very 
useful, and was promoted, so that he now is at 
the head of the detective force of Birmingham. 
He has a wonderful memory for faces, and hardly 
ever fails to recognize a person whom he has 
seen. Not long ago a man asked to see him, 
and was shown into his private office. Looking 
at the detective, the visitor said: "Do n't you 
know me?" The detective replied: "Wait a 
minute, and I '11 tell you. Yes, I recollect you. 
Fourteen years ago I arrested you, and you were 
tried at the Warwickshire assizes, and got four- 
teen years' penal servitude. Your name is 
so-and-so." 

"All right," replied the man; "but that is 
not all. After my sentence, when you had con- 
ducted me back to the cell, you waited a minute, 
and said to me: 'This is a bad job for you, man. 
You have been serving a bad master, and now 
you are in for the wages. You will have plenty 
of time to think now. Will you not come to 
the Lord, and ask his help to begin a new life? 
Read your Bible and pray. Give your heart to 
Christ. It is not too late for a change. Only 
turn now, and you '11 come out a changed man, 
to lead an honest life.' Then you shook hands 



8o 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



with me, and pleaded so earnestly that I made 
up my mind, and I have done it. The Lord has 
forgiven me, and I came to thank you for speak- 
ing to me, and to tell you." 

This incident ought to impress us with the 
truth that, wherever we are placed, there will be 
open doors, opening into fields of service where, 
if we are watchful and faithful, we may bear a 
testimony for Christ that will bear its fruit in the 
salvation of souls. 

One reason why Paul found open doors where 
other people did not was, that he was always 
adapting himself to the situation, and trying to 
put himself in his brother's place, and get hold 
of the motives that would be most effective in 
bringing him to give an interested hearing to the 
gospel. 

We need to do that. In trying to win a man 
to forsake his sins and accept the Lord Jesus 
Christ as his Savior, we surely ought to exercise 
as much common sense and inventive genius as 
we do in carrying on the business interests by 
which we get our daily bread. Dr. Edward Eg- 
gleston tells the story of a half-witted boy, who 
found a horse that everybody else failed to find, 
though there had been constant and diligent 
search made for the valuable animal. When 



A Great Door axd Many Adversaries. 8i 



asked how he caine to find the horse, he said: 
"I just went and sat down on that 'ar stump, 
and I thought, If I were a horse, where would I 
go, and what would I do? and I went right off 
and found him." 

We need an immense amount of that kind 
of consecrated horse-sense in pushing forward the 
work of the Church, and bringing the claims of 
Christ in an attractive way home to the heart of 
every man and woman and child in the com- 
munity. To a Christian who thus sets his wits 
to work to make himself a successful soul-winner, 
opposition and difficulties only arouse enthu- 
siasm, and add to the joy which he finds in his 
work. 

When I came to my pastorate in South Bos- 
ton, Massachusetts, several years since, I very 
well remember the first person who was con- 
verted. It was on the second Sunday evening 
of my pastorate. In an after-meeting, following 
the sermon, a young groceryman, a wiry little 
fellow, rose for prayers, and before leaving the 
house had thoroughly consecrated himself to 
God, and became a happy Christian. I was very 
happy over him ; but if I had known what a 
valuable man he was going to be, I would have 
been happier yet; for the very next Sunday that 



82 Heavenly Trade-winds, 



young fellow presented himself at a Bible-class, 
and had two other young grocery clerks with 
him ; and for months scarcely a prayer-meeting 
or a Sunday-school or a Sunday evening service 
went by that he did not have somebody new 
with him, about whom he was anxious and for 
whose soul he was seeking. He studied plans 
by which he could win souls day and night. 
He used to bring them to me and introduce 
them to me at the church-door, and, after getting 
them seated, slip out for a minute to tell me all 
he knew about them, and try to give me a hint 
by which I might be able to bait my hook so as 
to land them for the Master. And all the time 
I preached, his face was aflame with interest, 
and his heart going up in prayer to God that 
the word might be blessed to the salvation of his 
friend. He would make engagements to meet 
a man at his house, or at a certain corner of the 
street, to come with him to the prayer-meeting 
or to the Sunday service. 

No lover ever plied the arts of persuasion 
more seductively or more devotedly than did he 
to win the souls on whom he had set his faith in 
order to bring them within the reach of the gos- 
pel. The result was that within six months that 
young grocer's clerk, who had very little educa- 



A Great Door and Many Adversaries. 83 

tion and only ordinary ability of any sort, had, 
by his persistence, his tact, his consecrated com- 
mon sense, and his abounding love for the Mas- 
ter, brought to the Church more than twenty 
men who had been converted and become mem- 
bers of the Church. Think how rapidly the 
world would be. brought to Christ if all of us 
worked like that! And yet he had not lost any 
time from his work, and his employer thought 
more of him than ever. 

I remember, in that same congregation, a 
young English girl, who came one Sunday morn- 
ing at the public service to unite with the Church 
on probation. She was a domestic in a home 
where none of the family were Christians. She 
lived such a sweet Christian life in that home 
that after a little her mistress came with her 
one Sunday night to Church, and in the after- 
meeting came to the altar, and this girl prayed 
over her until she found the Lord. Only a little 
while later the daughter of the house was con- 
verted, and the entire family brought under the 
influence of the Church, all through the faithful, 
loving, Christian life of that servant girl, who 
sought day by day to bear a fragrant witness for 
the Lord. 

Brothers, sisters, shall w T e not take this mes- 



8 4 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



sage home to our hearts? What the open door for 
you is, I do not know; but God knows, and if you 
will open your heart to him, and try in sincerity 
to know his will, he will make you see it, and will 
Q-ive you orace and courage to enter it in his 
name and in his strength. Nothing else is of 
so great importance to us as this. Other things 
seem very important now: to be a good finan- 
cier, to be a successful politician, to win social 
prestige, to stand at the head of the profession, — 
all these seem attractive; but when life's little 
day is over, and, swift-winged through the years, 
we come to stand in Zion and before God, how 
petty and insignificant it will all seem compared 
to the great question as to whether we have , 
with patient love, acquired and practiced the art 
of winning our brothers and sisters away from 
the deadly fascinations of their sins to righteous- 
ness and eternal life! 



VI. 



OUT OF THE MIRE INTO THE CHOIR. 



" He brought me up . . . out of the miry clay, . . . 
and he hath put a new song in my mouth." — Psai,m xl, 2, 3. 

T^HIS is a graphic picture, David represents 



1 himself as in a position of great sorrow and 
trouble. He was down in the depths of a hor- 
rible pit, the bottom of which was formed of 
miry clay, so that the efforts which he made to 
get out only drew him the deeper into the mire. 
In such a condition as that, he prayed unto the 
Lord, and then waited patiently. He declares 
that God inclined his ear unto him, and heard 
him, and, what is more, took hold upon him, and 
brought him up out of the horrible pit, pulling his 
feet out of the mire, and placing them upon the 
solid rock, where his goings could be established, 
and he would not need to stagger to and fro, as 
a man does who tries to walk through a miry 
swamp. 

Not only was there this outward transforma- 
tion, but there was an inward uplift as well. 
A new song is put into his mouth — a song of 
praise and gratitude to God. In all this the 




86 



Heavenly Trade-winds, 



psalmist gives a very true picture of sin, and 
salvation from it, through the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Sin is a mire, which will entrap and draw down 
the strongest feet. 

One of the most graphic and fearfully fasci- 
nating pictures in all literature is Victor Hugo's 
description of death in the quicksands. He re- 
lates how it sometimes happens on certain coasts 
of Brittany or Scotland, that a traveler or fisher- 
man, walking on the beach at low tide, far from 
the high land, suddenly notices that for several 
minutes he has been walking with some diffi- 
culty. The strand beneath his feet is like pitch. 
The soles of his feet stick to it. It is sand no 
longer — it is glue. The beach is perfectly dry; 
but at every step he takes, as soon as he lifts his 
foot, the print which it leaves fills with water. 
The eye, however, has noticed no change. The 
immense strand is smooth and tranquil. All 
the sand has the same appearance. Nothing 
distinguishes the surface which is solid from that 
which is no longer so. The joyous little cloud 
of sand-fleas continue to leap tumultuously over 
the wayfarer's feet. The man pursues his way, 
endeavoring to get nearer the upland. He is 
not anxious. Anxious about what? Only he 
feels somehow that the weight of his feet in- 



Out of the Mire into the Choir. 87 

creases with every step he takes. Suddenly he 
sinks in. He sinks in two or three inches. De- 
cidedly he is not on the right road. He stops to 
take his bearings. All at once he looks at his 
feet. His feet have disappeared. The sand 
covers them. He draws his feet out of the sand. 
He will retrace his steps. He turns back. He sinks 
in deeper. The sand conies up to his ankles. 
He pulls himself out, and he throws himself to 
the left. The sand is half-leg deep. He throws 
himself to the right. The sand comes up to his 
shins. Then he - recognizes, with unspeakable 
terror, that he is caught in the quicksands, and 
that he has beneath him the fearful medium in 
which a man can no more walk than & fish can 
swim. He throws off his load, if he has one, 
and lightens himself like a ship in distress. It 
is already too late. The sand is above his knees. 
He calls — he waves his hat or handkerchief. The 
sand gains on him more and more. If the beach 
is deserted, if the land is too far off, if there is 
no help in sight, it is all over. He is condemned 
to that appalling burial — long, infallible, impla- 
cable, impossible to slacken or to hasten, which 
endures for hours, which will not end, which 
seizes you erect, free, in full health, which draws 
you by the feet, w T hich at every effort you at- 



88 Heavenly Trade-winds, 



tempt, at every shout you utter, drags you a little 
deeper, sinking you slowly into the earth, while 
you look upon the horizon, the trees, the green 
fields, the smoke of the villages on the plains, 
the sails of the ships upon the sea, the birds fly- 
ing and singing, the sunshine and the sky. The 
victim attempts to lie down, to creep. Every 
movement he makes inters him. He howls, im- 
plores, cries to the clouds, despairs. Behold him 
waist-deep in the sand! The sand reaches his 
breast. He is now only a bust. He raises his 
arms, utters furious groans, clutches the beach 
with his nails, would hold by that straw, leans 
upon his elbows to pull himself out of this soft 
sheath, and sobs frenziedly. The sand rises. 
The sand reaches his shoulders. The sand 
reaches his neck. The face alone is visible 
now. The mouth cries, the sand fills it — silence ! 
The eyes still gaze, the sand shuts them — night ! 
Now the forehead decreases. A little hair flut- 
ters above the sand. A hand comes to the sur- 
face of the beach, moves and shakes, and disap- 
pears. It is the earth drowning a man. 

Terrible as that picture is, you and I know of 
things more terrible than that. The picture we 
are studying of a man's feet caught in the mire 
of sin, presents a far more serious spectacle. 



Out of the Mire into the Choir. 89 



Who of us has not seen a young man's feet 
caught in that fearful mire? Sometimes it has 
been the mire of the liquor-saloon, and we have 
watched as, little by little, the fascination of 
strong drink has drawn down the man in his 
strength — little by little, insidiously, unexpect- 
edly, like the fisherman whose feet are caught 
in the quicksands on the coasts. But after 
awhile he acknowledges that he can not control 
or master himself — that when he would live so- 
ber, he becomes a drunkard. He makes breath- 
less efforts to reform, signs pledges, tries to pull 
himself out of the fearful meshes; but only 
sinks down the deeper. Ah ! it is an old story, 
illustrated in almost every Brooklyn street. 

Or, it may be the mire of lust — the soft se- 
ductions of flattery and sensuality that have 
overthrown thousands of the strongest Samsons 
that have ever lived. Or, it may be into the 
mire of business entanglement, the love of money 
blinding the keen conception of rectitude, dull- 
ing the inner sense of equity and justice, little 
by little lowering the purpose and ambition of 
the life, until greed, loathsome and slimy and 
devilish, pulls the man beneath its sluggish ooze. 
Or, it may be it is none of these, but the fas- 
cinating strand of pleasant, fashionable self-in- 

7 



9o Heavenly Trade-winds. 



diligence. Simple selfishness — perhaps into no 
mire have so many souls been dragged as that; 
simply to have one's own way, to do as one 
pleases; only to forget one's obligation to God 
and humanity; not a sin of commission, but of 
omission. How many are caught in those dan- 
gerous meshes ! 

Brother, sister, where are your feet treading? 
Are you on the solid upland, with a basis of 
everlasting rock under your feet, or do you tread 
on the quicksands, in the dangerous mire? I 
entreat you to be honest with your own soul. 
If such is your condition to-night, thank God it 
need not be your doom to perish alone, with none 
to help or save ; for the Lord Jesus Christ came 
to seek and to save that which was lost. His 
strong arm stretches out to you now, and if you 
will give him your hand and welcome his assist- 
ance, he will bring you up out of this horrible 
pit of despair, out of the miry clay into which 
you are sinking, and place your feet upon a rock, 
and establish your goings, and give you a place 
in the great choir of ransomed and redeemed 
souls. No matter if you have been drawn down 
so deep in the mire that you are no longer able 
to help yourself, and are discouraged about your- 
self, and even your friends have lost faith in 



Out of the Mire into the Choir, 91 

your ever being saved from your sin, — still Jesus 
Christ is able to save you. As Dr. Maclaren 
grandly says : " Jesus Christ walks through the 
hospital of this world, and sees nowhere in- 
curables. His hope is boundless because, first of 
all, he sees the dormant possibilities that slum- 
ber in the most degraded; and because, still 
more, he knows that he bears in himself a power 
that will cleanse the foulest and raise the most 
fallen, 

" There are some metals that resist all at- 
tempts to volatilize them by the highest tem- 
perature producible in our furnaces; but carry 
them into the sun, and they will all pass into 
vapor. There is no man or woman who ever 
lived, or will live, so absolutely besotted, and 
held by the chains of his or her sins, that Jesus 
can not set them free. His hope for outcasts is 
boundless, because he knows that every sin can 
be cleansed by his precious blood." 

A brother minister relates that, as he was 
passing out of the meeting one evening, a lady 
sought him, and asked him to go with her to see 
her husband, who was quite sick. On the way 
she told the minister she was very anxious about 
her husband's spiritual condition. When they 
entered the sick-room they found him sitting in 



92 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



an easy-chair, and, after a few words about his 
sickness, the minister inquired concerning his 
confidence in God and hope of immortality. 

"Well," he said, "I think my chances for get- 
ting to heaven are pretty good." 

The minister felt that he was not real, and so 
replied: "Do you believe heaven is a reality?" 

He said: "Yes." 

"Is it true there is a hell?" 

He replied: "Yes, I believe it." 

"And you have an immortal soul that will 
soon be in one or the other of these places for- 
ever ?" 

"Yes," he said, earnestly. 

"You just now said you thought your chances 
for heaven pretty good; you believe heaven is a 
reality, and hell is a reality, and your precious, 
immortal soul will soon be happy in heaven for- 
ever. You must have some reason for it. Will 
you please tell me what it is?" 

"Well, I Ve been kind to my wife and chil- 
dren, and I have not intentionally wronged my 
fellow-men." 

"That 's all very good," the minister replied, 
"and it is nice to be able to say that; but, now 
tell me, what kind of a place do you think heaven 
is, and what do they do there?" 



Out of the Mire into the Choir. 93 

"Well," he said, "I think there is no sin or 
sorrow there. It must be a happy place; and I 
think they sing there a good deal." 

Turning to the Book of Revelation, the min- 
ister said: " Yes, they do sing there, and I '11 just 
read you a song they sing: 4 Unto Him that loved 
us, and washed us from our sins in his own 
blood.' You see they are praising their Savior — 
the one who loved them and died for them. Let 
me read it again : 4 Unto Him that loved us, and 
washed us from our sins in his own blood.' I 
want you to take notice, they have not a word to 
say about what they have done. It is all about 
what Christ has done. He loved them and died 
for them. Now, suppose you were up there, and 
had got there in the way you say — because you 
had been good to your family, and so on — there 
would be one sinner in heaven that had never been 
washed from his sins in the blood of Jesus. You 
could not join in the song they sing, could 
you?" 

The minister waited for an answer. The sick 
man's head had dropped, and his eyes were 
turned to the floor. At last he raised his head, 
and with an anxious face, like one who was 
waking out of a life-dream, and was for the first 
time with honest seriousness facing eternal reali- 



94 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



ties, he slowly replied: "Well, I never thought 
of that before. " 

"Well," said the minister, "God has thought 
of it before, and he has had written a few verses 
for persons just like you, who are willing to take 
their chances, as you said, on their good works, 
and are. deceiving themselves by the false hope 
of getting to heaven in that way. I '11 read the 
verse. It is in the fourth verse of the fourth 
chapter of Romans: ' Now unto him that work- 
eth is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of 
debt.' Let me explain this. When you were 
well and could work, you received your wages 
because you had earned them. You were under 
no special obligations to the man who paid you. 
You would come home to your wife, and say, 
'Here is what I made to-day.' You could talk 
about what you had done and what you had got, 
and you would not have a word to say about the 
man who paid you. That is just what God 
means by that verse : * Now to him that worketh 
is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.' 
If you could get to heaven by what you have 
done, there would be no grace about it. You 
would know nothing of God's love as shown in 
Jesus. You could not sing, 'Unto Him that 
loved us, and washed us from our sins in his 



Out of the Mire into the Choir. 95 

own blood;' for you would be there without a 
Savior, and you would have no song. Do you 
think you could be happy?" 

By this time the man was ready to confess 
that, in spite of all the good he had claimed, he 
was a poor sinner against God, who needed a 
Divine Savior; and with joy the minister re- 
peated to him those hopeful words that have 
been the sheet-anchor to so many souls: "This 
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accepta- 
tion, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners;" and those other words, " Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved." 

Then my friend went away, and on coming 
back the next morning, beheld a marvelous 
transformation. As he opened the door, the sick 
man greeted him with a look of heavenly joy in 
his face, and said: u O, I '11 have a song now. It 
will be, 'Unto Him that loved us, and washed us 
from our sins in his own blood.' " 

Brother, have you learned the new song? 
Do you belong to the redeemed choir? If not, 
I pray that God's love may get hold of you to- 
night! 

The sweet note of a bullfinch, in its cage by 
a window looking on a conservatory and garden 



9 6 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



caused Canon Wilberforce to say, in his impet- 
uous manner: "That bird knows a sweet little 
German song, 'Ich liebe diclT — 'I love you;' 
but I can only get him to sing it by standing be- 
fore his cage, whistling the tune myself, turning 
my head from side to side, smiling upon him — 
in every way making myself as much at home 
with him as possible. Doing this, I often think 
it is just the way God gets a song out of my heart. 
•He could crush me in his hand, just as I could 
crush the little bird; but what good w r ould that 
do? It would be spoiling a beautiful organism, 
and not getting the song after all. The bird is 
like me: neither of us can sing to God, 'I love 
thee,' except we see that which is so true in na- 
ture and in grace — 'He first loved us.' " 

O, my friend, do not let your soul go orphaned 
in the midst of God's offered tenderness and 
love. A family once went up from New York 
to the mountains. Some milk, fresh from a 
country dairy, was set before the children. One 
of the little fellows would not drink it. 

"Why won't you take it, my child?" inquired 
the mother. 

" What is it?" the little fellow asked. 

"Milk," was the response. 



Out of the Mire into the Choir. 97 

" Humph! That ain't milk," said the little 
boy; "milk 's blue." 

How many poor, bewildered souls there are 
who starve themselves on the world's blue milk, 
and walk a pathway of darkness and disappoint- 
ment and gloom, while God is continually prof- 
fering his love, and readv to awaken melodies of 
immortal victories in their hearts ! 

We Christians ought not to fail to get a note 
of inspiration and courage out of our theme to- 
night; for the declaration of the psalmist is, that 
his new song is not to go unheard, but "many 
shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord." 
There is something marvelously inspiring about 
song. A recent writer in the Lutheran Quarterly 
relates a very interesting story of the overthrow 
of Louis Napoleon. 

He says that during all the long Sunday after- 
noon and evening before the battle of Sedan the 
German regiments gathered around their bands 
of music, and sang the hymns of the Church 
and the Fatherland. On that afternoon Na- 
poleon made a last reconnoissance with some 
members of his staff, and once, pointing to a 
group of Bavarians, he asked: "What are they 
singing?" 



9 8 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



" A household song, sire," replied an aide. 

He then rode on to another point, and from a 
distant camp-fire another chorus came rolling to- 
wards him. 

"What are they singing?" asked the nervous 
emperor. 



"A battle-hymn, your honor." 

The doomed man rode on, and stopped again 
in the gloom to look down upon a field of 
Saxons. 

"They, too, are singing," he said; "what 
is it?" 

"'A mighty fortress is our God,' the Re- 
formers' battle-hymn," replied a member of his 
staff. 

"My God, we are beaten!" said the stricken 
man, as he rode back to Sedan, awaiting the hor- 
rors of the dawn. 

Napoleon felt, with his clear intuition, that he 
did not have an army to withstand those great 
groups of singers that went to battle with songs 
on their lips. And there is nothing that can 
withstand the army of our God when it goes 
into battle singing its new song of confidence 
and praise toward the L,ord Jesus Christ, 



VII. 



THE HERO AND THE SUICIDE. 



" For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I 
live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I 
shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, 
having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ ; which 
is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more 
needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that 
I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance 
and joy of faith." — Phil, i, 21-25. 

\ ^ TV, have here a fascinating and splendid 



V V insight into the workings of a great soul; 
one who, by common consent, is a noble rep- 
resentative of the heroic spirit in human life. 
No sane man of any faith, or any lack of faith, 
would deny that Paul was a hero. And he 
draws aside the curtain in these calm but earnest 
sentences, and we look through the window and 
see the play of faith, hope, ambition, longing, 
fidelity to duty, love for Christ, enthusiasm for 
humanity, working together in the production of 
the heroic spirit in this man's life. 

Life to Paul was not a fragmentary thing. 
It was one continuous onward sweep. Its cur- 
rents ended not in the grave, but only met there 




99 



IOO 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



the welcoming tides of the great ocean of im- 
mortal life. As the tides of the sea lay hold 
upon the river with irresistible force, and sweep 
its fresh floods onward toward the bosom of the 
great deep, so the power of an endless life laid 
hold of Paul, and the heavenly magnetism 
was continually attracting him, tugging at his 
heart, and drawing him onward toward the 
greater life beyond. To Paul's sublime faith 
every part of the universe was filled with the 
presence of God. His quick ear was never out 
of hearing of the night-watchman about whom 
Tennyson sings: 

"Love is and was my Lord and King, 
And in his presence I attend 
To hear the tidings of my friend, 
Which every hour his couriers bring. 

Love is and was my King and Lord, 
And will be, though as yet I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompassed by his faithful guard, 

And hear at times a sentinel 

Who moves about from place to place, 
And whispers to the world of space 

In the deep night, that all is well. 

And all is well, though faith and form 
Be sundered in the night of fear : 
Well roars the storm to those that hear 

A deeper voice across the storm." 



7 he Hero axd the Suicide. ioi 



We are just now come on a time when two 
contradictory spirits stand out in very prominent 
incarnation before the public eye. The last year 
or so has been, I think, remarkable in events which 
have called for heroism in the common walks of 
life, and fully as remarkable in the splendid re- 
sponse which has been made to that call. In flood 
and fire, men and women and children alike have 
shown themselves rich in the spirit of the no- 
blest heroism. The recent great devastating 
forest-fires in the West have been full of such il- 
lustrations. 

One writing from the immediate vicinity de- 
clares that the list of heroes of those great dis- 
asters can never be enrolled save in that list 
where every man's deeds are recorded. The 
whole country has been full of the praise of the 
railroad engineer who, recalling the only green 
spot for miles, saved two hundred lives by carry- 
ing them to it through the most terrible ordeal, 
standing at his post when the heat was roasting 
the flesh from his body. But there was many 
another hero just as faithful. There was one 
little boy in West Duluth, only fourteen years 
old, who carried and dragged two smaller chil- 
dren for several miles from the wreck of the train, 
where rescuers found them. 



102 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

There was a young lover who carried his sick 
betrothed on his back for a mile through the 
flames to a place of safety, while the heat was so 
terrible that many others, walking beside him 
with no burden, lay down and died. There was 
another man who, after fighting the fire until 
ready to perish, seeing the danger of his crippled 
brother, out of love for him rather than hope for 
himself, picked him up and bore him away to a 
place of safety. Many who failed were just as 
heroic in their death as these, and countless 
others were in their lives. Scores of dead men 
were found whose positions in death as it instan- 
taneously seized them, showed that they were 
hastening at all speed into the very face of the 
flames to the rescue of others. And nearly 
every one who escaped from the doomed Minne- 
sota villages can tell of some brave soul who 
reckoned nothing of his own life if he might but 
help another, and, forgetting self in the moment 
of keenest agony, thought only of his more help- 
ess brother. Weil does one say, "The gallant 
feats of battle, done under stress of passion, pale 
before these deeds, done in the face of panic and 
in despite of mortal agony. " 

But these heroes are not the only heroes. I 
thank God that I believe there is more heroism 



The Hero and the Suicide. 103 

in the world to-day than ever before. Through- 
out this business depression, the hard times that 
have ground so heavily in many a home have de- 
veloped heroes and heroines whom none know 
about but God. There are cynics who would 
try to make us believe that the miserable scan- 
dals which we find in our newspapers, telling 
their sad story of dishonor and frailty, represent 
the general current of human life; but it is false. 
As a distinguished New York editor said re- 
cently: These are very few in comparison to 
the wives who bear the brunt of ill-fortune with- 
out a murmur; husbands who struggle with pov- 
erty, or what is much harder to bear, impending, 
threatening poverty, with a calm fortitude w^hich 
excites the pity of the cloud of witnesses in the 
upper air; both men and women who have secret 
sufferings so great that their hearts are beating 
a dead march to the grave, but from whose lips 
no word of complaint escapes ; thousands of girls 
fighting life's lonely struggle, but who neverthe- 
less keep themselves unspotted in spite of fate, 
preferring the loneliness of a dingy room, with 
honesty for company, to the gaudy surroundings 
which are bought with impurity of life. When 
one thinks of these things, and counts over these 
every-day heroes, he feels like thanking God for 



io4 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



belonging to a race that has the capacity for so 
much goodness in it. 

Then, over against this, we have an antago- 
nistic spirit, strongly illustrated in the alarming 
epidemic of suicide. There can be no doubt, I 
think, that the number of suicides was never so 
large in proportion to the population as in this 
present year. This increasing army of demoral- 
ized, defeated self-murderers is shouted on, and 
evidently largely swelled in number, by that no- 
torious apostle of suicide, Robert G. Ingersoll. 
The fact that many of the recent suicides have 
left either letters or other evidence, showing that 
they have been influenced by Mr. Ingersoll's 
words to take their own lives, must form serious 
matter for consideration to even so reckless and 
possibly so seared a conscience as that of Mr. 
Ingersoll. 

Some years ago, Colonel Gourraud, of London, 
invited Lord Tennyson, Mr. Gladstone, and Car- 
dinal Manning to utter in his phonograph some 
brief message to the world, which was never to be 
repeated until after their death. Some two years 
after Cardinal Manning's death a number of dis- 
tinguished men and women gathered by invita- 
tion to hear that solemn voice which spoke as 
from the grave. It is said the strongest-hearted 



The Hero and the Suicide. 105 

persons present paled a little as they listened to 
the message. This is what it was: "I hope 
that no word of mine, written or spoken in my 
life, will be found to have done harm to my fel- 
low-men when I am dead." I should like re- 
spectfully to commend the sobering thought of 
the great cardinal to Mr. Ingersoll's considera- 
tion. What a contrast between the influence of 
the words of Ingersoll and those of the white- 
souled poet, Longfellow! 

Charles Sumner tells us that a classmate of 
his was saved from suicide by reading Longfel- 
low's noble poem, "The Psalm of Life." And 
General Meredith Reed relates an incident that 
occurred during the Franco-German war. It 
was in the midst of the siege of Paris, when a 
venerable man presented himself to General 
Reed bowed with grief. He was a very distin- 
guished officer. He said: "I have just learned 
that my son has been arrested by the German 
authorities at Versailles on an entirely unfounded 
charge. He is to be sent to a German fortress 
and may be condemned to death. I am here 
alone and helpless. I feel that my mind will 
give way if I can not find occupation. Can you 
tell me of some English book that I can trans- 
late into French ?" General Reed promised to 

8 



io6 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



do so, and he left him. Within an hour or so, 
however, he received a line from him, saying he 
had found what he required. A few days after- 
ward he came to see the general, but now erect, 
his face bright with hope, his voice clear and 
strong. In explanation of the change he said: 
"I have been translating Longfellow's ' Psalm of 
Life,' and I am a new man. I feel that my mind 
is saved, and that faith and hope have taken the 
place of despair. I owe it all to Longfellow." 

What a contrast between an influence like 
that, giving hope and courage to disheartened 
souls, nerving them up to bear life's ills with brave 
heart, rousing and recruiting their self-respect 
by a grand conception of the largeness and no- 
bility of life and its possibilities, — what a contrast, 
I say, between such an influence and that of Mr. 
Ingersoll, whose words are taking the last ray of 
hope out of many discouraged minds, and mak- 
ing lives already trying, unbearable, by the added 
weight of his dark shadow ! 

And yet, in fairness, we must admit that Mr. 
Ingersoll is perfectly consistent in his position 
in favor of suicide. If man is no higher than 
the beasts that perish; if his life is only the re- 
sult of a chemical combination; if there is no 
soul, no spirit, no immortal life beyond, no per- 



The Hero and the Suicide. 107 

sonal God to whom we are responsible, — then the 
natural logic of the situation is suicide, when- 
ever life ceases to give more profit than loss as a 
temporary investment. The doctrines which 
Mr. Ingersoll has been preaching so boldly for 
many years lead naturally to this result, and it is 
only consistent that, before he closes his record 
on earth, he should follow that logic to its con- 
summation, and become the apostle of suicide, 
as he has been heretofore the apostle of infidelity. 
It is well that the public should see the whole 
length of the stream, and behold the dark and 
dismal swamp into which oozes its murky tide. 

One turns in abhorrence from such a concep- 
tion of life and its end, to welcome as a vision 
from a mountain-top, or a breath from the sea, 
the life and character and influence of such a 
man as Paul, who, though he had suffered many 
things, undergone almost incredible exertion, 
endured the bitterest persecution, and came to 
old age scarred on every side, yet could talk 
about life and death and eternity with calm se- 
renity, saying in substance: "If I continue to 
live on earth, my life is in fellowship with Jesus 
Christ, doing his work of loving service ; and if I 
die, it is gain, in that I shall have a wider field 
and a still more glorious fellowship. " What 



io8 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

above everything else was the basis of Paul's 
heroism? Was it not in this, that the great pur- 
pose and ambition of his soul was to be of 
service ? 

His character was the result of that service. 
All his life-time he was building character, and 
yet character was the natural result of the daily 
work and toil of his life. Character through serv- 
ice is the golden chain that runs through all his 
life. " For to me to live is Christ," he said. Christ 
is the incarnation of that idea of service. " He 
was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor." He 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister 
unto the poorest. He pleased not himself, but 
sought always the best for others. The secret of 
this splendid heroism of Paul's, that which made 
life worth living to him, w T as the glad service to 
which he gave his willing heart. 

There is no greater lesson for us to learn than 
this, that the happiness which Mr. Ingersoll and 
his disciples would call the profit, which alone 
makes life worth living, does not come to the 
people who seek it, but rather to those who seek 
to do their duty and honestly serve God and 
their fellows. 

This is a truth which has been recognized in 
all the greatest conceptions of literature. Goethe 



The Hero and the Suicide. 109 

sets forth this thought very clearly in his two 
great literary masterpieces. Wilhelm Meister 
starts out in life, believing that in the gratifica- 
tion of his sensual appetites he will find real 
happiness; but the sad result was that he found 
only wretchedness and remorse. Then he changes 
his ideal, and says, Self-culture will bring me true 
happiness ; but all his learning fails to bring him 
peace. At last he grows interested in his fel- 
low-men, studies medicine, and in the self-devo- 
tion of his medical practice finds a contentment 
which he had never known before. In giving 
himself up to service in utter forgetfulness of 
happiness, happiness becomes his. 

The same truth is taught still more clearly in 
Faust, where Mephistopheles contracts with 
Faust to give him all possible delights, if he will 
surrender to him his soul when perfect happi- 
ness has been found. Faust passes through pre- 
cisely the same experience as Wilhelm Meister, 
and never finds happiness until he drains a 
sterile, miasmatic tract of land, and makes it fit 
for habitation. The experiment completed, old 
and blind, he ascends the tower of his house, 
and thence looks out, in spirit, upon the work 
that will bring blessing to millions. "Stay, thou 
art fair!" he cries, and falls back dead; not into 



no Heavenly Trade-winds. 



the hands of Mephistopheles, however, but into 
those of the heavenly hosts. In both the novel 
and the play, the great writer is true to the spirit 
of the gospel of Christ, which makes the heart of 
all noble life to be service. 

The apostles of suicide base their arguments 
in favor of self-murder on the mistaken ground 
that sorrow and poverty and pain mean final 
and lasting defeat and failure. This is the natu- 
ral conclusion, of course, for them to reach from 
their narrow vision ; but from the higher moun- 
tain-top from which Paul looked at human life, 
he saw that sorrow, as well as joy, w 7 as a part of 
the Divine plan. 

In one of the battles of the Crimea a cannon- 
ball struck inside a fort, and tore a great hole in 
the center of a garden, destroying for a moment 
the beauty of the place ; but from the rugged 
hole in the earth there burst out a living stream 
of water, which flowed on forever afterwards, a 
cool, refreshing fountain. So to the Christian 
vision* God's benevolence is as often revealed in 
sorrow as in joy. 

Charles Dickens gives us a remarkable illus- 
tration of this in his Christmas story, entitled 
" The Haunted Man." The hero of the story, 
Redlaw, was in a great agony of grief, w r hen 



The Hero axd the Suicide. hi 



there appeared before him a specter, who offered 
to give him power to forget all the sorrow and 
trouble he had ever known, and in addition to 
take from him all the feelings and associations 
that had been developed and fed by sorrow, and 
not only so, but he should have the power to be- 
stow this gift upon others wherever he went. 
With great joy he accepted the gift, and went out, 
as he thought, to cure all the world's heartaches. 

But to his great astonishment he became, in- 
stead of a blessing, a dire curse wherever he 
went, and at last by bitter experience he was 
taught the lesson that, twined about the sorrows 
and troubles of men and women, were a whole 
host of kindly recollections, of grateful memo- 
ries of those who had helped them in difficulty, 
and of culturing influences that make men strong 
and good. He learned, indeed, that people w r ere 
brought together in fellowship and brotherhood 
far more by what they had suffered in common 
than by what they had enjoyed ; and that if all 
memory of wrong was taken away, with it went 
all the blessing which comes from forgiving our 
enemies; and when the memory of trouble was 
taken, all thought of sympathy and mercy toward 
the sorrowing was taken also. As he saw that 
both himself and his fellows, in the absence of 



ii2 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

sorrow and trouble, were becoming monsters of 
greed and selfishness, and that all the graces of 
kindness and sympathy were dying out in the 
world, he prayed that the fateful gift might be 
taken from him and the memory of his sorrows 
returned; and as a result he became far happier 
and wiser. This is in harmony with the spirit 
of the gospel of Christ ; and one with a vision as 
wide as Paul's, which may be the glad privilege 
of every one of us, can understand that in God's 
wisdom and love the threads of joy and sorrow, 
of victory and defeat, are woven together in one 
harmonious whole, making at last a robe of char- 
acter that we may wear in triumph in the heav- 
enly fellowship. 

The Mid- Continent gives a remarkable narra- 
tive of a young newspaper man from Denver who 
had been seeking in vain for employment, and 
had gone upon a bridge in Chicago, intending 
to drown himself. 

His hurried step and maddened face attracted 
the attention of a policeman, who accosted him, 
and asked him what he was doing there at that 
time of night. He told the policeman that there 
w^as no room for him in Chicago, but there was 
in the Chicago River. 

"Now look a' here, young feller," said the 



The Hero and the Suicide. 1x3 

burly, big-hearted policeman, "you're a talkin' 
tro' yer hat, see? You ain't going to jump into 
no river. You come along wid me, and I '11 start 
you over to de Pacific Mission. Dey 's got grub 
and fire for such fellers what 's down in dere luck 
like you's are, see? And dey sing hymns and 
read de good book, and dey'll give you a warm 
place to sleep. Now come along.'-' 

The young journalist went along, and as he 
"ran" he u read," so to speak. To make the 
story brief, he received the hearty Christian wel- 
come promised. He was first warmed and fed, 
and then given an opportunity to hear good sing- 
ing, short prayers, and the common-sense Chris- 
tian talks he needed. It resulted in his conver- 
sion. In the testimony meeting before eight 
hundred men on Thanksgiving night (all of 
whom were first well fed, and six hundred of 
whom were afterward lodged), he asked them, in 
his remarks, the question which he said had come 
home so strongly to him the night he tried to 
drown himself: "Does Ingersoll establish such 
missions as this? Do his followers? What makes 
these people care whether I drown myself or not ? 
Isn't there something in this Christianity I al- 
ways doubted?" That young man is now work- 
ing might and main for the Master. 



ii4 Heavenly Trade -winds. 

His new fellowship with Christian men and 
women had broadened his horizon and enlarged 
his vision. 

With such a vision we may sing with Mrs. 
Farningham : 

" Life has its valleys 

And difficult mountains, 
Sands of the deserts 

And gurgling, glad fountains ; 
Sweet grassy meadowlands, 

Hard, stony byways ; 
Ever its ups and downs, 

Lowlands and highways. 
Sorrows and pleasures 

Await every rover 

All the world over. 

Ills have their recompense, 

Labor its guerdon; 
Strength to the carrier 

Comes with the burden. 
After rain, sunshine, 

So runs life's story ; 
Sorrow and strain 

Are the preludes to glory. 
Clear eyes some gain 

In a loss can discover, 

All the world over. 

That which is loveliest 

Comes to the loving; 
All that is strongest 

The strong have for proving. 



The Hero and the Suicide. 



Gifts come the surest 

To those who love giving ; 
They have life's best 

Who have made it worth living. 
Love gives its gold of love, 

Aye, to the lover, 

All the world over. 

Sad heart, be hopeful, 

Despairing no longer; 
Wrong is the weaker, 

The right is the stronger. 
Trust and go forward, 

On God's help relying; 
That which is best lives 

Though all else be dying. 
God rules forever, 

As good will discover, 

All the world over." 



VIII. 



CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP.* 



" Through it he being dead, yet speaketh." — Hebrews 



HIS Scripture is a testimony to the immor- 



tality of a great faith. It is connected with 
an illustration of the indestructible power of a 
worthy belief when incarnated in human life. 
John Stuart Mill's greatest maxim was, that 
u One man with a belief is equal to a hundred 
men with only interests." A genuine human 
life flows on beyond its coast. As far out at sea, 
off the mouth of a great river, out of sight of 
land, the sailor lifts from the vessel's side his 
bucket of sweet, fresh water from the midst of 
the salt ocean, so the life we study to-day will 
flow far beyond its coast, and will sweeten life 
far out of sight over the billows of the years. 

It is not my purpose this morning to act the 
part of a biographer in telling you, in detail, the 

*A memorial sermon delivered in memory of the Hon. 
Samuel Booth, ex-mayor of Brooklyn, and for thirty-six 
years superintendent of the Hanson Place Methodist Epis- 
copal Sunday-school. 



XI, 4. 




Christian Citizenship, 



11-7 



story of the life of Samuel Booth, but only to 
touch here and there upon some of those lofty 
principles and characteristics which made his 
life the inspiration and the benediction it was; 
for the longest life has, after all, but few great 
sources of inspiration. You remember that Jacob, 
more than a hundred and thirty years old, when 
he came to die, looking back over what seems to 
us that long period of a life that had had more 
than its share of diverse experiences, saw only 
three things, and condensed his biography into a 
half-dozen lines. The first that he saw as he 
looked back was the one farthest, away, and for a 
moment his thought rested on the night at 
Bethel: u God Almighty appeared to me at Luz, 
in the land of Canaan, and blessed me." And 
again he lingers for a moment: " And as for me, 
when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in 
the land of Canaan." All the rest had been for- 
gotten — his ambition, the long, sharp struggles 
by which he had sought riches and honor, even 
his sorrow over the loss of Joseph, and the terri- 
ble fear he once experienced of his brother, 
Esau — all was lost in the dim haze and dust of 
the distance, and he saw only three great pivotal 
times in his past looming up like three mountain 
peaks: the time when he met God at Bethel, 



n8 



HE A l ENL Y 7 RADE - WINDS. 



and the heavenly stairway brought angels down 
to comfort him; the time when he found Rachel, 
and his heart was stirred to its profoundest 
depths by human love; and the time when he 
lost her, and entered into the black night of grief. 
And so in this strong and splendid life that has 
been lived out in this city of Brooklyn, and 

4 

which, in so large a part, has had this church as 
its theater of operation, there are certain strong 
features which we want to study. 

Samuel Booth had a natural and acquired 
gift of leadership among men. Many who rec- 
ognize that, might be at a loss to analyze the rea- 
son for that leadership. It seems to me that, in 
a very large degree, it was the leadership of 
simple, honest goodness. Phillips Brooks, in a 
sermon preached on All-saints' Day many years 
ago, declares that there are three kinds of leader- 
ship among strong men. 

First, there is the hero. It may be in the 
mere strength of personality — mere strong indi- 
viduality—showing itself in some acts of prow- 
ess, some brave, self-risking deed, some conquer- 
ing of circumstances by a dash of romantic daring 
which attracts men, and influences them. In 
such cases the leader is what we call a hero, — 
some man like Napoleon crossing the Alps in 



Christiax Citizenship. 119 



winter, or Wolfe scaling the heights at Quebec, 
or Sheridan riding from Winchester to turn de- 
feat into victory. Then there is another class of 
men who are leaders because of the truths that 
they teach. Such a leader leads men by the 
power of ideas — by superior knowledge. He is 
a teacher, — such a man as Plato, or Bacon, or 
Sir Isaac Newton, or Darwin, or Benjamin 
Franklin. And then there is still another kind, 
and perhaps it is the highest kind, of leadership. 
It is in a certain thing which we call goodness. 
It is something which we can not define, other- 
wise than that there is a larger and more mani- 
fest presence of God in the life of one man than 
other men have. Their conscience and will and 
motive force seem to be so in touch with the 
Divine heart that other men feel that this man, 
more than themselves, embodies the Divine 
spirit, and shows forth the spirit of Christ. 

Now I think that Samuel Booth, though he 
had undoubtedly something of the hero in him, 
and some element of the teacher in any great 
truth that impressed his own soul, yet above 
everything else his power came from his good- 
ness. And so, in a very true sense, he was a 
saint. I like to impress this idea of sainthood 
with reference to a great, splendid, strong, vigor- 



120 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



ous man like Samuel Booth. As Bishop Brooks 
says, again: " Saints, as we often think of them, 
are feeble, nerveless creatures, silly and effemi- 
nate — the mere soft padding of the universe. I 
would present true sainthood to you as the strong 
chain of God's presence in humanity, running 
down through all history, and making of it a 
unity, giving it a large and massive strength, 
able to bear great things, and do great things, 
too." 

Samuel Booth had the bravery of goodness. 
He had the courage to say Yes, or the courage 
to say No. Through a long life, lived largely 
and intensely; having many business interests of 
his own as well as those relating to the public ; 
having much to do with politics, — he had the 
courage to live an honest, clean, Christian life, 
keeping his record clear and bright in the midst 
of every temptation to be careless of Christian 
obligation. It requires more bravery to do that 
than it does to storm a fortress under the inspira- 
tion of music and the din of musketry. 

So good a judge of courage as Colonel T. 
Wentworth Higginson declares that if he were 
asked to record the bravest thing done, within 
his immediate knowledge, during the Civil War, 
he would award the palm to something done by 



CHRISTIAX ClTIZEXSHIP. 121 



a young assistant surgeon, not quite twenty-one 
years old at the time — Dr. Thomas T. Miner, then 
of Hartford, Connecticut. It was at an exceed- 
ingly convivial supper-party of officers at Beau- 
fort, South Carolina, to which a few of the 
younger subalterns had been invited. Colonel 
Higginson says that he saw them go with some 
regret, since whisky was rarely used in his regi- 
ment, and he had reasons to think it would cir- 
culate pretty freely at this entertainment. About 
Dr. Miner he had no solicitude, for he never 
drank it. Later he heard from some of the 
other officers present what had occurred. 

They sat late, and the fun grew fast and furi- 
ous. Some of the guests tried to get away, but 
could not, and those who attempted it were re- 
quired to furnish in each case a song, a story, or 
a toast. Miner was called upon for his share, 
and there was a little hush as he rose up. He 
had a singularly pure and boyish face, and his 
manliness of character w T as known to all. He 
said: " Gentlemen, I can not give you a song or 
a story, but I will offer a toast, which I will 
drink in water, and you shall drink as you please. 
That toast is, 'Our Mothers.' " 

Of course, an atom of priggishness or self- 
consciousness would have spoiled the whole sug- 

9 



122 Heauenly Trade-winds. 

gestion. No such quality was visible. The shot 
told. The party quieted down from that mo- 
ment, and soon broke up. The next morning 
no less than three officers, all men older and of 
higher rank than Dr. Miner, rode several miles 
to thank him for the simplicity and courage in 
his rebuke; and Colonel Higginson says: "Any 
one who has much to do with young men will 
admit, I think, that it cost more courage to do 
what he did than to ride up to the cannon's 
mouth." 

That was the kind of courage which Samuel 
Booth had, so far as I am able to find out, all 
his life long. 

Again, he was a man of genuine public spirit. 
He was interested in what interested his city and 
his State. He believed it was his duty and the 
duty of all Christian men to be as faithful to 
civic obligations as they were to the claims of 
the Church. He took the office of mayor of the 
city of Brooklyn with the same sort of conscien- 
tious purpose and with the same determination 
of sacred fidelity that he felt when he took the 
office of superintendent of the Hanson Place Sun- 
day-school. Duty, to him, was a sacred thing — 
as sacred one place as another. Everywhere he 
was God's servant, he was Christ's representa- 



Christian Citizenship. 



123 



tive — as honest and straightforward and clean in 
the Board of Aldermen, at the head of the post- 
office, or as treasnrer for bounty funds in time of 
war, as he was in relation to the Church which 
he loved, .and the communion altar which he so 
reverently approached. If we might have a gen- 
eration of citizens like that, how many things 
would die out of existence ! If all the professed 
disciples of Jesus Christ in this country were to be 
so aroused to their civil duties that they would 
determinedly and with prayerful fidelity seize 
hold upon the political life of the country, how 
the gambling-hell would be uprooted, and the 
great race-tracks and watering-places purified; 
and the saloon, that veritable hell of modern 
civilization, where everything that is mean and 
dishonest and corrupt and vile and lecherous 
breeds its devil's brood, to prey upon the very- 
vitals of city and State and National Govern- 
ment, — how soon this sink of iniquity would be 
dried up, were Christian citizens to do but their 
simple Christian duty as citizens in the cities 
where they live ! 

Samuel Booth believed in boys. Indeed, it 
might be said he had a passion for boys, and that 
for this reason I have called him the boys' patron 
saint. The boy who is midway between his kilts 



124 



He a vexl y Trade - u r iNDS. 



and long trousers has a perilous gauntlet to run. 
There is no time of his life so important, and yet 
there is no period when he is so often misunder- 
stood, nor when he finds so few people who are 
patient enough and sympathetic enough to enter 
into fellowship with him in those budding hopes 
and ambitions which are so dear to the boy's 
heart. Brother Booth could go all the way 
through with Mrs. Farningham in her poem 
about "My Neighbor's Boy:" 

"He seems to be several boys in one, 

So much is he constantly everywhere ; 
And the mischievous things that boy has done, 

Xo mind can remember, nor mouth declare. 
He fills the whole of his share of space 
With his strong, straight form and his merry face. 

He is very cowardly, very brave ; 

He is kind and cruel ; is good and bad ; 
A brute and a hero, — who will save 

The best from the worst of my neighbor's lad? 
The mean and the noble strive to-day — 
Which of the powers will have its way? 

The world is needing his strength and skill ; 

He will make hearts happ}^ or make them ache. 
What power is in him for good or ill ! 

Which of life's paths will his swift feet take ? 
Will he rise, and draw others up with him ? 
Or the light that is in him burn low and dim ? 

But what is my neighbor's boy to me 

More than a nuisance ? My neighbor's boy. 



Christian Citizenship. 



125 



Though. I have some fears for what he may be, 

Is a source of solicitude, hope, and joy, 
And a constant pleasure, — because I pray 
That the best that is in him wall rule, some day. 

He passes me by with a smile and a nod ; 

He knows I have hope of him — guesses, too, 
That I whisper his name when I ask of God 

That men may be righteous, his will to do. 
And I think that many would have more joy 
If they loved and prayed for a neighbor's boy." 

It would be a blessed thing for the world if 
Christian men and women everywhere were to 
enter into more perfect fellowship with Samuel 
Booth aricl Mrs. Farningham in love and prayer 
for a neighbor's boy. These boys are the prom- 
ise of the future. When William the Conqueror 
sailed from the shores of France, eight centuries 
ago, to capture the crown of England from the 
head of Harold the False, the royal galley led 
the fleet. The figure-head upon its prow was a 
golden boy, pointing the way across the channel 
to England and victory. So, please God, let us 
raise golden boys in our homes and Churches 
and schools, who shall point to a still mightier 
civilization to come. 

Among the Revolutionary curiosities which 
they cherish in the old State-house in Phila- 
delphia is the shell of a little drum from which 



126 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

the heads are gone, and above it are these words: 
"This drum was beaten at the battle of German- 
town — 1777— by John Shumaker, aged twelve 
years." As the drum is now headless, it is prob- 
able that little Johnnie got so excited in the 
battle that he beat the heads out with the drum- 
sticks. But let us not forget that, while great 
men who are able to fire their mighty cannon 
here and there in the cause of righteousness are 
important for the moment, the great hope of 
the race is in the multitudes of boys who are 
beating their drums in anticipation of their part 
in the struggle for a wider liberty and a holier 
civilization. 

Samuel Booth believed in men. He wisely 
wanted to get hold of them when they were 
boys, and keep them off the breakers which 
wreck so many young men, spoiling life's cargo 
at the outset, and making hard indeed the strug- 
gle for them to again get under way for a pros- 
perous career ; yet he believed that so long as 
a man lived there was hope that the grace of 
God might lift him out of his sins and help him 
into a new life. No one but God knows how 
much good he did because of this belief. Dur- 
ing the many years of his close relation with 
the Elmira Reformatory, he came into personal 



Christian Citizenship. 127 



contact with hundreds — and indeed, in the total, 
with thousands — of young men, who had been 
sent there from the city of Brooklyn; and theie 
are hundreds of them who were rescued from a 
life of crime, and were started again upon a path 
of rectitude and righteousness, and are living to- 
day honest and successful lives, because Samuel 
Booth put his great stalwart form square in the 
path between them and hell, and by his kindly 
sympathy and brotherly fellowship turned them 
about, bolstered them up while they needed it, 
encouraged them w r hen they were disheartened, 
and gave them a new lease on an honest life. 
He reminds me very much of the Earl of Shaftes- 
bury. His career was not so widely known; 
but, so far as he had the power to reach, it was 
as thoroughly noble in every respect. Both in 
Booth and Shaftesbury the great power w T as in 
giving themselves. They did not succeed by 
any sort of machinery, but by personal contact. 
A reformed criminal was once asked where his 
reformation began. "With my talk with our 
earl," was the reply. "What did the earl say 
which was so impressive?" "It w T as not so 
much what he said as what he did. He put his 
arm around me, and said, 'Jack, we'll make a 
man of you yet.' " Ah! that is the great power. 



i28 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



It was so with the Master. It must be so with 
us all who would bring wounded souls back to 
the Master. 

But, after all, what made it possible for Sam- 
uel Booth to do all this was the deep, abiding 
faith in his soul that every man, however warped 
and twisted, had in him the possibility of becom- 
ing, by God's grace, a good and a holy man. 

A very interesting story is told of an experi- 
ence Mr. W. T. Round, agent of the Prisoners' 
Reformation Society of New York, once had with 
a discharged convict from Sing Sing. 

One day, while sitting in his down-town of- 
fice in New York, the door opened, and one of 
the most evil-visaged men he had ever seen in 
his life walked towards him. The man was a 
discharged convict from Sing Sing. He could 
neither read nor write, but had with him a letter 
from the warden of the prison to Mr. Round, 
which he had been led to believe was one of 
recommendation. The missive read something 
like this: 

"Dear Mr. Round, — The bearer of this is one of the 
worst cases. He is a dangerous fellow, and utterly untrust- 
worthy. Be careful of him." 

After reading the letter, Mr. Round asked the 
man what he wanted. He replied that he 



Christian Citizenship. 129 



wanted work, and was willing to do anything. 
As Mr. Round afterwards stated to a friend, the 
man had a most wicked face, but beneath his 
hardened countenance seemed to sparkle a sense 
of honesty. The ex-convict was told that not 
very much could be done for him, but that a man 
was wanted in the agent's office, and that he 
might have the position. He seemed very grate- 
ful, and was put to work. The next day Mr. 
Round's mother visited the office, and when her 
son returned home that night she told him that 
he must get rid of the man, as she believed that 
some day the man would kill him. A week 
passed on, and Jack (for that was the ex-con- 
vict's name) seemed to be a reformed man. 
The following day a gentleman called to see 
Mr. Round, and left a contribution of fifty dol- 
lars for the Society. When the gentleman left, 
he laid the money on the desk and began writing, 
when a feeling began to steal over him that 
some one was cautiously creeping up towards 
him from behind. Beads of perspiration began 
to stand out on his forehead; but yet he hesi- 
tated about looking around. A few seconds 
passed when, involuntarily, he turned in his 
chair, and stood erect. Before him was the ex- 
convict, with a bludgeon in hand, ready to brain 



130 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

him. The men gazed steadily in one another's 
eyes, when Mr. Round put his hand gently on 
the arm of the ex-convict, and, in a kindly voice, 
said: "Jack, if you do this, it will break my 
heart/' 

The words acted like magic. The frame of 
the great brutal man trembled like a leaf. A 
pallor overspread his face; the fingers relaxed, 
and the weapon fell to the floor. When he be- 
came composed, he admitted what he had in- 
tended to do, and also told Mr. Round that that 
one sincere, brotherly expression had completely 
reformed him. His after life clearly demonstrated 
the truth of this assertion, and he is now a pros- 
perous merchant in the city of Xew York. 

Booth, as well as Round, knew the value of 
timeliness, and so it was his custom for many 
years to have these young men, when they first 
came back from the reformatory, come and see 
him in his home, and with great sympathy he 
sought to tide them over hard and dangerous 
places. A little help that comes just at the 
time one needs it, of what great value it is ! 
Mrs. Sangster has a sad but wonderfully true 
song about the "Help that Comes Too Late:" 

"'Tis a wearisome world, this world of ours. 
With its tangles small and great, 



Christian Citizenship. 



Its weeds that smother the springing flowers, 
And its hapless strifes with fate ; 

But the darkest day of its desolate days 
Sees the help that comes too late. 

Ah ! woe for the word that is never said 

Till the ear is deaf to hear, 
And woe for the lack to the fainting head 

Of the ringing shout of cheer; 
Ah ! woe for the laggard feet that tread 

In the mournful wake of the bier! 

What booteth help when the heart is numb ? 

What booteth a broken spar 
Of love thrown out when the lips are dumb, 

And life's barque drifteth afar, 
O far and fast from the alien past, 

Over the moaning bar? 

A pitiful thing the gift to-day 
That is dross and nothing worth, 

Though if it had come but yesterday 
It had brimmed with sweet the earth — 

A fading rose in a death-cold hand, 
That perished in want and dearth. 

Who fain would help in this world of ours, 
Where sorrowful steps must fall, 

Bring help in time to the waning powers 
Ere the bier is spread with a pall ; 

Nor send reserves when the flags are furled, 
And the dead beyond your call. 

For battling most in this dreary world, 
With its tangles small and great, 

Its lonesome nights and its weary days, 
And its struggles forlorn with fate, 

Is that bitterest grief, too deep for tears, 
Of the help that comes too late." 



132 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

Ivike Elijah of old, Samuel Booth died with 
the harness on. His lessened strength for two 
or three years had made it impossible for him 
to do all that he had been accustomed to do be- 
fore; but his heart was in it none the less. 
There was some resemblance between Elijah 
and Booth. Elijah had a great interest in 
young men. He was always around among the 
farms and fields, picking one out here and there, 
and educating him for the Lord's service. Not 
only so, but he had three schools for young 
men — one at Bethel, one at Gilgal, and another 
at Jericho. And we are told that on that last day, 
before the horses and chariots of fire were to 
carry him away, he seemed to be conscious that 
his last day was at hand ; and he walked thirty 
miles that day in order that he might visit all 
the schools and have a last look and a few 
words with the boys. Booth was not able to 
get back in his last days even to the Sunday- 
school; but it was only a few days before his 
death that, while I sat by his bed, he had 
brought and given to~me a copy of the Annual 
Year-book of the Elmira Reformatory, and his 
face glowed with a heavenly light as he tried 
to tell me of its great success, and as he made 



Christian Citizenship. 133 



inquiries later about the Sunday-school. And 
so it was that our Elijah came to his translation. 
May a double portion of his spirit fall upon the 
young men of this Church and congregation ! 



IX. 



TIGHTENING THE GIRDLE-CHAINS. 

" They used helps, undergirding the ship." — Acts 
xxvii, 17. 

PAUL, was on his way to Rome on an Alex- 
andrian corn-ship. He was a prisoner un- 
der guard, going to Caesar to be tried on his 
appeal. He had advised against the voyage at 
this season of the year; but the centurion and 
the captain, as well as the owner of the ship, 
who was anxious, no doubt, to get a good pas- 
senger fare from Paul and the soldiers w^ho 
guarded him, sided against the preacher, think- 
ing they knew a great deal more about it than 
he did; and as a result they came to disaster; 
for in this case the preacher seems to have had 
the best of it in information and judgment. 

So when "the south wind blew softly," they 
set sail with all confidence; but they had not 
gone very far before they ran into a tempest, 
and in the great storm which followed, the ship 
was badly strained and began to leak, and, as 
was common in those times when vessels were 
less stanchly constructed than they are now, 
134 



Tightening the Girdle-chains. 135 



they got out their great girdle-chains and under- 
girded the ship, thus stopping the leak as much 
as possible, and giving strength to the vessel. 

It seems to me that there ought to be in this 
suggestive incident a message for us. Life is 
even compared to a voyage, and the breaking 
up of character and the destruction of a prom- 
ising career is perhaps more frequently and 
naturally likened to a shipwreck than to any 
other figure. A man's character, then, is the ship 
in which he sails on the tempestuous voyage of 
human life, and it surely will not be without 
benefit to us to study some of the helps or 
strong chains by wdiich it is possible to under- 
gird our character in times of temptation, and 
when we are in danger of being overwhelmed 
by the storm. 

How often we hear repeated, about somebody 
who has made a failure of life, the suggestive 
phrase, "He has gone all to pieces!" What are 
the great chains that keep a character from 
" going to pieces" on the rocks? Perhaps they 
will seem trite and commonplace to you; but if 
you let them gird your personal life, I am sure 
they will be full of romantic interest. 

One of the greatest blunders w 7 e can possibly 
make is to suppose the romantic and ideal to be 



136 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



foreign to, or have little to do with, the practical 
affairs of every-day existence. Instead, the ro- 
mantic and the ideal onght to clothe with their 
halo of interest, and enthusiasm the commonest 
every-day action of life, thus lifting it out of the 
prosaic, and making it poetic and splendid. 

Beatrice Harraden, in that suggestive little 
book, u Ships that Pass in the Night," has a fas- 
cinating picture of a traveler, much worn with 
journeying, who climbed the last bit of rough 
road which led to the summit of a high moun- 
tain. It had been a long journey and a rough 
one, but the traveler had vowed that he would 
reach it before death prevented him. The moun- 
tain was the most difficult of ascent of that long 
chain called " The Ideals;" but he had a strongly 
hoping heart and a sure foot. He lost all sense 
of time, but he never lost the feeling of hope. 

"Even if I faint by the wayside," he said to 
himself, "and am not able to reach the summit, 
still it is something to be on the road which 
leads to the High Ideals." 

At last he reached the temple on the summit, 
and rang the bell, and of the keeper who opened 
the gate he asked: "Old white-haired man, tell 
me, and have I come at last to the wonderful 
Temple of Knowledge? I have been journeying 



Tightening the Girdle-chains. 137 

hither all my life. Ah ! but it is hard work climb- 
ing up the Ideals." 

The old man touched the traveler on the arm. 
"Listen!" he said gently; "this is not the Tem- 
ple of Knowledge, and the Ideals are not a chain 
of mountains; they are a stretch of plains. Go 
back to the plains, and tell the dwellers in the 
plains that the Temple of True Knowledge is in 
their midst; any one may enter in who chooses. 
Tell them the Ideals are not a mountain range, 
but their own plains where their great cities are 
built, and where the corn grows, and where men 
and women are toiling, sometimes in sorrow and 
sometimes in joy. The Temple has always been 
in the plains, in the very heart of life and work 
and daily effort. The philosopher may enter ; 
the stonebreaker may enter. You must have 
passed it every day of your life." 

There is a truth here which every one of us 
ought to learn. The glory of our religion is that 
it glorifies common life ; and the girdles that we 
need are those that shall hold us strong to meet 
the waves that beat against us in the home, in 
the school, in the street, and in the market-place. 

The great girdle-chain, without which no life- 
ship will permanently stand the storm, is prayer. 

The oft-quoted words of Tennyson have voiced 

10 



138 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

the faith of the greatest souls who have ever 
lived : 

" More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day ; 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

Emerson said, " Hitch your wagon to a star;" 
but it is possible for us to have nobler steeds than 
that. The soul that genuinely and sincerely 
prays to God, holding communion with him, 
joins strength with the God who made the stars. 
And the joy of all this is, that this greatest possi- 
ble girdle of character is just as surely within the 
reach of the weakest and humblest as it is of 
the most learned and powerful. 

It is related of Alexander the Great, who was 
a shabby little creature to look at, that one day, 
when the king was surrounded by abject cour- 
tiers, a poor woman came to plead for a life very 
precious to her. One of the most insignificant 
of the courtiers was a man of splendid presence, 
and so the poor woman, thinking he looked more 
like a king than any one else, cast herself on the 



Tightening the Girdle-chains. 



i39 



earth before him, and poured out her heart's plea. 
When she ended, the real king drew near, and 
said: "I know whom it was you meant to speak 
to. You shall have what you ask." If a man 
like Alexander the Great could do that, how 
much more shall our Heavenly Father under- 
stand the weakest cry of the most humble soul 
that appeals to him? 

William Canton, in a volume of mingled prose 
and poetry recently issued in England, has a 
little bit of advice to young parents. He says : 
vi Accept for future use this shrewd discovery 
from my experience: When a baby is restless 
and fretful, hold its hands ! That steadies it. It 
is not used to the speed with which the earth re- 
volves, and the gigantic paternal hands close 
round the warm, soft, twitching fists, soft as 
grass, and strong as the everlasting hills. " So 
amid all life's nervousness and fear, when life is 
too swift for us, when we are confused and dizzy 
with the strife of tongues, it is possible, by prayer, 
to put our hands into the steadying palm of our 
Father. 

"Hold thou my hands ; 
In grief and joy, in hope and fear, 
Lord, let me feel that thou art near. 
Hold thou my hands! 



140 



HE A VENL Y TRA DE - WINDS. 



If e'er by doubts 
Of thy Fatherhood depressed, 
I can not find in thee my rest, 

Hold thou my hands ! 

Hold thou my hands — 
These passionate hands too quick to smite, 
These hands so eager for delight — 

Hold thou my hands ! 

And when at length 
With darkened eyes and fingers cold, 
I seek some last loved hand to hold, 

Hold thou my hands!" 

Another common girdle within the reach of 
all is an appetite for good reading — a taste for 
good literature. One who has acquired a taste 
for reading good books has always within reach 
the possibility of communion with the high souls 
of all ages. Charles Sumner, in his great ora- 
tion on "Fame and Glory," recalls an interesting 
incident in the life of Wolfe, the conqueror of 
Quebec. Perhaps of all the gallant young men 
who had to do with the French and English set- 
tlement of this country, none has attracted so 
large a share of interest as Wolfe. While yet 
young in years he was placed at the head of an 
adventurous expedition destined to prostrate the 
French empire in Canada, and every leader of a 
forlorn hope in any good cause since that day 
has recalled the picture of the gallant young 



Tightening the Girdle-chains. 141 

general climbing the precipitous steeps which 
conduct to the heights of the strongest fortress 
on the American Continent. 

An eminent artist has portrayed the scene of 
his death, which came in the very hour of victory : 
u History and poetry have dwelt upon this scene 
with peculiar fondness. Such is the glory of 
arms ! Happily there is preserved to us a tradi- 
tion of this day which affords the gleam of a 
truer glory;" for the biographer assures us that 
as young Wolfe floated down the current of the 
St. Lawrence in his boat, under cover of night, 
in the enforced silence of a military expedition, 
to effect a landing at an opportune point, he was 
heard, repeating to himself in a subdued voice, 
that beautiful poem — then but just written, but 
now known wherever the English language has 
gone — Gray's " Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard." On his way to battle and to death, the 
daring soldier, far from home and the gentle 
domestic associations of kindred and loved ones, 
was comforting his soul and girding up his strong 
nature to do his whole duty by communion with 
the poet. As he finished the recitation, he said 
to his companions, in a low but earnest tone, 
that he u would rather be the author of that 
poem than take Quebec." So the business man 



142 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



who finds many a stress of trial and danger, de- 
manding a heroism eqnal to that of the soldier, 
may gird his daily life by the cnltivation of lofty 
communion and fellowship in the world of books. 

Closely akin to this is the girdle of friendship. 
There can be no greater safeguard (always ex- 
cepting the communion with God) than Chris- 
tian friendship in the hour of trial. As another 
well says: "When a man feels the ground slip- 
ping from under him, when his power of resist- 
ance begins to weaken, and he realizes that a 
great gulf of wrong-doing is yawning before him, 
how helpful is the presence and sympathy of one 
to whom he is bound by the sacred ties which 
bind both to Christ! First, Christ himself s then 
those who are Christ's, are the safest resorts of 
one who is assailed by the wiles of the evil one." 

Make friends! Make friends with good peo- 
ple. Make yourself attractive to good people. 
Cultivate the art of trying to please the very best 
and noblest Christian people you know. What 
a girdle it is in the hour of trial to feel that there 
are noble, high-toned souls, who look at all ques- 
tions from a lofty moral height, who are inter- 
ested in you, who love you, who trust you, and 
who will be hurt at the heart if you fall below 
the high standard which they have set for you! 



Tightening the Girdie-chains. 143 

Bishop Vincent relates that dnring all his son's 
early childhood, when the little boy was going 
anywhere away from home, he would say to him : 
"You must remember now whose boy you are, 
and be good." But one day, as the lad grew 
older, he stole a march on the bishop, and as his 
father was going away, the boy said: "You must 
be a good man now, and remember whose father 
you are." How much good the remembrance of 
these human relations does us! And it can not 
possibly help being a girdle of strength to any 
man to remember, when he is tempted to do a 
wrong thing, that he belongs to a circle of true 
and noble souls who are trusting him not to de- 
grade their comradeship and their common 
honor. 

Another strong girdle-chain amid the storms 
of life is a habit of helpfulness for other tried 
and tempted souls. A very significant thing is 
said about Job in the last chapter of the won- 
derful book which bears his name: "And the 
Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed 
for his friends." It is surely significant that the 
turning point in Job's life came at the moment 
of his self-forgetfulness, when his whole being 
was possessed with a desire to help others. There 
is nothing more divine or Christlike than that 



i44 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



spirit. As we catch Christ's spirit, we gain his 
sublime strength of resistance and triumphant 
power over all evil. 

The Chicago Inter-Ocean tells the story of a 
little boy who was found sleeping under a 
wooden sidewalk, early in the morning of a cold 
spring day, with a pigeon cuddled in his bosom. 
Poor little fellow! He had no father, mother, 
sister, or brother to love, and he could not find 
food for a dog when it was so hard to get any for 
himself; but he could feed a pigeon, and thus 
have something to love and protect. He could 
not protect himself from the inclemency of the 
weather, but he could protect and feed some- 
thing ; so he shared his crust, and gave the shel- 
ter of his bosom to the little dove. 

Ah! how many human doves there are who 
need our sheltering bosom ! Soiled doves, if you 
will, but dear to the heart of God, and many of 
them a thousand times more sinned against than 
sinning, and rich in possibilities for the develop- 
ment of the very highest type of humanity. 

A gentleman, writing to the Interior the other 
day, relates this incident in his own career as a 
prosecuting attorney: "A boy of fifteen w r as 
brought in for trial. He had no attorney, no 
witnesses, and no friends. As the prosecuting 



Tightening the Girdle-chains. 145 



attorney looked him over, he was pleased with 
his appearance. He had nothing of the hardened 
criminal about him. In fact, he was impressed 
that the prisoner was an unusually bright-looking 
little fellow. He found that the charge against 
him was burglary. There had been a fire in a 
dry-goods store, where some of the merchandise 
had not been entirely consumed. The place had 
been boarded up to protect, for the time being, 
the damaged articles. Several boys, among them 
this defendant, had pulled off a board or two, and 
were helping themselves to the contents of the 
place, when the police arrived. The others got 
away, and this was the only one caught. The 
attorney asked the boy if he wanted a jury trial. 
He said "No;" that he was guilty, and preferred 
to plead guilty. 

Upon the plea being entered, the prosecutor 
asked him where his home was. He replied 
that he had no home. 

u Where are your parents?" was asked. He 
answered that they were both dead. 

"Have you no relatives?" was the next 
question. 

"Only a sister, who works out," was the 
answer. 

" How long have you been in jail?" 



146 



He a venl y Trade - winds. 



"Two months." 

"Has anyone been to see you during that 
time?" 

"No, sir." 

The last answer was very like a sob. The 
utterly forlorn and friendless condition of the 
boy, coupled with his frankness and pleasing 
presence, caused a lump to come into the law- 
yer's throat, and into the throats of many others, 
who were listening to the dialogue. Finally 
the attorney suggested to the judge that it was 
a pity to send the boy to the reformatory, and 
that what he needed more than anything else 
was a home. 

By this time the court officials, jurors, and 
spectators had crow T ded around, so the better to 
hear what was being said. At this juncture one 
of the jurors addressed the court, and said: 
"Your honor, a year ago I lost my only boy. If 
he were alive, he would be about this boy's age. 
Ever since he died I have been wanting a boy. 
If you will let me have this little fellow, I II 
give him a home, put him to work in my print- 
ing establishment, and treat him as if he were 
my own son." 

The judge turned to the boy, and said: "This 



TlGHTEXIXG 1HE GlRDLE-CHAINS. I47 



gentleman is a successful business man. Do 
you think, if you are given this splendid oppor- 
tunity, you can make a man of yourself?" 

"I '11 try," very joyfully answered the boy. 

"Very well; sign a recognizance, and go with 
the gentleman," said the judge. 

A few minutes later the boy and his new 
friend left together, while tears of genuine pleas- 
ure stood in many eyes in the crowded court- 
room. The lawyer, who signs his name to the 
story, declares that the boy turned out well, and 
proved to be worthy of his benefactor's kindness. 

Deeds like that are waiting for the doing on 
every hand, and no man gives himself up to this 
spirit of helpfulness for others without strength- 
ening his own life. 

. Let us recount the girdles: Prayer, fellow- 
ship with books, communion with noble friends, 
a divine spirit of helpfulness for others, — these 
ought to make us strong and brave citizens in 
this hour when so many stern problems confront 
our country. There never was a time when the 
Republic needed men and women, well girded 
to do their whole duty as patriotic citizens and 
as wise Christians, than now. We need to sing 
to each other James Russell Lowell's lines, writ- 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



ten for another crisis, but equally applicable 
to this: 

" 'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit, the idle slaves 
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves. 
Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a crime. 
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards ? steered by men 

behind their time ? 
Turn those tracks toward past or future that make Plymouth 

Rock sublime ? 

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, 
Unconvinced by ax or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's ; 
But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath 
made us free ; 

Hoarding it in moldy parchments, while our tender spirits 
flee 

The rude grasp of that great impulse which drove them 
across the sea. 

They have rights who dare maintain them. We are traitors 
to our sires, 

Smothering in the'r holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar fires. 
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our 
haste to slay, 

From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps 

away, 

To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day? 

New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good 
uncouth ; 

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast 
of Truth. 

Lo ! before us gleam her camp-fires ! We ourselves must 
pilgrims be, 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the des- 
perate winter sea ; 

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood- 
rusted key." 



THE NIGHT-WATCH OF THE CHRISTIAN 
SENTINEL. 



"Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burn- 
ing, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their 
Lord."— Luke xii, 35, 36. 



HIS is the picture of a Christian, painted by 



imagination with great clearness. As we read, 
there appears before us a strong, martial figure, 
clothed for action; the loins are girded about; 
in his hand he carries a lighted torch; and there 
is, in the poise of the figure and in the earnest 
cut of the features and flashing of the eye, a 
look of expectancy and hope. Surely it will be 
interesting for us to study this conception of 
Christ's of what our own lives ought to be. 



We have, first, in this figure a suggestion of 
power. Men gird their loins for strength. This 
is in harmony with the spirit of the New Testa- 
ment. You will search the words of Christ or 
Paul in vain for any other conception of a Chris- 




It stands out before the 



L 



150 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

tian than this. He is to be a strong, noble fig- 
ure — one full of courage and endurance; he is 
to wax valiant in the midst of struggle. And 
this puts the Christian in marvelous harmony 
with the spirit of the age in which we live. 
There never was a time when men so thirsted 
for power as they do now. Emerson, in his 
essay on u Power," says: "Life is a search after 
power, and this is an element with which the 
world is so saturated — there is no chink or crev- 
ice in which it is not lodged — that no honest 
seeking goes unrewarded." 

We may see the indications of this ambition 
for power in all the every-day life of our times. 
The mammoth corporations and trusts, which 
gather into themselves a hundred or more of the 
smaller firms of a generation ago, are a peculiar 
development of this spirit. It is because the 
great trust has a power which the small part- 
nerships could not wield. The long, strong arm 
of the gigantic corporation is able to gather far 
and wide, to dictate to Legislatures and Con- 
gresses; because, when so massed in solid pha- 
lanx, wealth is power. I am not speaking in 
defense of this sort of thing, or saying that it is 
beneficial or praiseworthy — Heaven forbid! I 
am only using it as an illustration, which is 



The Night-watch. 



easily grasped, of the spirit of the time in which 
we live. 

Modern scientific investigation has revealed 
to us many things about the unwasting power 
of nature, and has proved that the Bible idea of 
the ever-present God in all things, from the 
greatest to the smallest, is true. In barbaric 
ages, as among rude and untaught people to-day, 
men went to an earthquake or an avalanche or 
a simoon for signs of power; but as we study 
into these things, we come to know that the 
power of the avalanche is present in every wan- 
dering flake of snow. The power of the thun- 
derbolt, that fells at a single blow the giant mon- 
arch of the forest, trembles on our own finger- 
tips, and flows as a steady current of life along 
the baby's nerves. If you have seen a prairie 
on fire, stretching away for miles on miles of 
billowing flame, you have seen a very impressive 
sight. If you have seen a great mountain forest 
on fire at night, with ten thousand great pines 
or hemlock-trees wrapped in fire and standing 
out like giant torches on the mountain side, you 
have witnessed a spectacle still grander. Or, if 
you have felt some volcano, like Vesuvius, shud- 
der beneath your feet, while its vomited flames 
glared out against the midnight sky, you have 



152 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

felt emotions you can never forget. But, after 
all, there is not a book-keeper here who footed 
up his columns of figures at the bank or in the 
counting-room last night without a brain-fire, 
the real significance of which outshone the burn- 
ing prairie or forest, or the more sublime flames 
of Vesuvius. For we are coming to understand 
that power is no longer a matter of mountains 
and oceans, but of human brains and hearts. 
Every thinking, loving, hating, fearing, hoping, 
believing man or woman is a walking furnace, 
hotter than Nebuchadnezzar's, and the fuel that 
sustains its fires is not wood or coal, but nerves 
and blood and brain, and that divine elixir of life 
which God only can bestow. 

It is right we should have this thirst for 
power. It is in the charter of our creation. 
God made us to have dominion; but God forbid 
that we should be satisfied with anything less 
than the highest and noblest kind of power. 
There are some kinds of power it is easy for us 
to measure. If we know the velocity and weight, 
it is easy for us to measure the force of a cannon- 
ball. We can calculate through how much iron- 
plating it will forge its way at the end of a cer- 
tain distance. But that explosion of vitality by 
which the Psalms were shot out of the brain 



The Night-watch. 



i53 



and heart of David and thrown across the cen- 
turies — who shall measure that? That marvel- 
ous projectile force by which the thirteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians goes on through 
generation after generation, making tender the 
hearts of each new multitude of selfish men and 
women — who will figure out such mental and 
spiritual dynamics as that? 

The physical world so surrounds us, so floods 
us, that it is likely to receive far more attention 
than it deserves. We need constantly to be re- 
minded that the things which are seen are tem- 
poral, but that the things which are unseen and 
spiritual are abiding and eternal. Just as surely 
as there is a physical force in the elements, 
which drives a vessel upon the rocks and strews 
its wreckage along the seashore, or power in 
the moonbeam to lift uncounted tons of water 
in tides from the ocean's bed; and another intel- 
lectual force of thought which lights up century 
after century, from Moses to Paul, from Paul to 
Shakespeare, and from Shakespeare to Glad- 
stone, with its unwasting flame, — just so surely 
there is a spiritual force in the heart of God, re- 
produced, more or less clearly in every age of the 
world's history, in the hearts and lives of those 

who have been sharers of the divine nature. 

11 



i54 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



When I walk out, these June days, and look 
at the flowers, admiring their beautiful coloring, 
and breathing in with gratification their pleas- 
ing fragrance, I am assured that there is a phys- 
ical force resident in the sun that has definite 
and harmonious relations with seeds and roots 
that are in the mold of the earth, and the appli- 
cation of that far-off force has produced this 
wonderful vision of glory which I see in the rose- 
bush or the rhododendron. So when I walk out 
among men, and I see them in the midst of trial, 
of temptation to selfishness and vice, remain 
pure and true, denying themselves for others; 
giving up their own ease and pleasure that they 
may help the fallen and the weak; getting their 
gladness and their joy, not by receiving, but by 
giving; counting it all joy to suffer, that the 
right may live and the truth reign, — when I see 
all this, I know that there is a spiritual force 
which has its home in the heart of God, which 
has definite and harmonious relations with these 
human souls, and calls into life within them every 
holy impulse and noble thought. 

Let us enrich ourselves to-night with the 
spiritual wealth there is in this great conception 
of Christ's concerning the possibility of our 
Christian lives. If there is any one listening to 



The Night-watch. 



i55 



me who feels that his own life has been slug- 
gish and crippled and dwarfed, almost as help- 
less as the jelly-fish, which takes its shape from 
whatever presses against it, I would that there 
might be inspiration in our study this evening 
to arouse you to believe — what is certainly the 
truth — that there are spiritual resources possible 
for every one of us to sustain us in triumphant 
and useful life. 

We are learning, in these days of marvelous 
inventions and of new combinations and adapta- 
tion of force, that a man is strong only as he is 
allied with mighty forces. "Give me a place to 
stand," said Archimedes, "and I will move the 
world." And some of the feats of our time make 
us willing to believe that almost anything is pos- 
sible, in a physical way, when human ingenuity is 
allied with simple, underlying forces of the uni- 
verse. Not along ago an advertisement in the 
Chicago evening papers called for six hundred 
workmen, to meet at the corner of two streets 
on a certain morning. When the hour arrived, 
the six hundred necessary workers were selected 
from the crowd, and each man was set to work 
at a jackscrew, and began to turn in concert at 
a given signal. Before evening a massive eight- 
story building was raised to a newer grade in the 



156 Heavenly Trade-winds, 

street. Six hundred ordinary men, picked up 
from among the idlers of the street, with ordi- 
nary jackscrews in their hands, had raised four 
million pounds more than their own weight with 
perfect ease. 

Now, if the law of mechanics teaches us to 
use such powers as these, we ought not to be so 
slow as we are in learning the simple laws of 
the spiritual life. Our Lord Jesus Christ says 
that all power in heaven and in earth is his. 
He also says that those who love him and keep 
his commandments may ask what they will, and 
it shall be done for them ; but without him they 
can do nothing. 

All things are possible to him that believeth. 
If we yield ourselves to the divine magnetic 
leadership of Jesus Christ, no spiritual enemies 
can stand against us. One of the most thrilling 
episodes in Roman history is that of the battle 
of Lake Regillus. One after another the cham- 
pions of the young republic fell before the furi- 
ous onslaughts of the Latins. The Romans 
seemed almost to have lost the day and their in- 
dependence, when suddenly at their head ap- 
peared two youths, matchless in form and apparel, 
leading another charge against the enemy. The 
fainting patriots took heart, made a final effort, 



The Night-watch. 



i57 



and won the day. When the battle was done, 
and they bethought themselves to return thanks 
to their deliverers, the young knights were not to 
be found ; and ever after they believed that they 
had been divinely led and rescued from defeat. 

The struggle against sin which goes on in an 
earnest human soul is a for sorer conflict than 
any out of which arose a State; but when a 
Christian finds himself ready to despair and sub- 
mit to defeat, there rings in his ears the cheer- 
ing call of a leader before whose prowess the 
powers of evil are scattered like chaff in a tem- 
pest. When this battle, too, is won, and the 
panting victor asks, "Who is this that is glori- 
ous in his apparel, mighty to save?" he can 
not but confess, in his wonder and gratitude, 
"Surely this was the Son of God." 

II. 

We have also, in the figure we are studying, a 
suggestion of illumination. In Christ's thought 
the Christian watchman has not only his loins 
girded about for power, but he carries a light 
which is brightly burning. David recognized 
that he was "a candle of the Lord." And Christ 
says of Christians that they are "the light of 
the world;" and he commanded the early dis- 



158 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

ciples to let their light shine. An unlighted 
spiritual nature can give out no illumination. 
Many Churches are dark, and in a sad sense illus- 
trate the proverb about "a dim religious light," 
because there are so many whose natures give 
out little or no spiritual illumination. 

Mr. Moody says that when he was holding 
meetings in London the first time, he noticed a 
well-dressed lady who was a regular attendant at 
all the services. She always managed to get a 
seat in about the same position in the hall, near 
the platform. She was a most attentive listener. 
She never engaged in the singing, but sat 
through all the services with a perfectly con- 
tented and satisfied expression on her face. 
Day after day through three or four weeks he 
watched her. She had become a sort of fasci- 
nation. One day he asked a lady who occupied 
a seat on the choir platform if she knew her. 

"O yes," was the reply, u very well." 

"Is she a Christian?" 

u No," replied the lady, with an abrupt tone 
of voice as if she did not care to say anything 
more about her, "she is a bog." 

"A bog?" Mr. Moody repeated, not quite un- 
derstanding what was meant. 

"Yes," was the short, sharp reply, u a bog." 



The Night-watch. 



i59 



Still mystified, he repeated the question, "a 
bog?" 

"Yes a B-O-G, spelled with capital letters: 
that's what she is. Don't yon know what a 
bog is?" 

"Yes, I think I do," he replied. "In our coun- 
try at least, it is a bit of marshy ground, or a 
stagnant pond, which catches the surface water 
of the surrounding country, but which has no 
outlet. It is usually covered with a green slime 
and is the home of wild water-weeds and all 
sorts of frogs and reptiles." 

"Well, that is what she is. She is a bog. 
She is found at all the religious meetings in 
London. She is a stagnant marsh. She has 
an unlimited capacity for hearing sermons, and 
receiving all kinds of religious instruction, but 
she has no outlet. She is never known to do 
anything for Christ. She never speaks to a soul. 
She never gives to any cause, though she has 
money. She never does anything but absorb, 
absorb, absorb. She is a bog. We have a lot of 
them in London, and that is what we call them." 

Alas! I fear there are bogs in all our 
churches — many people upon whom God's face 
shines in great tenderness and love, people upon 
whom God has bestowed many gifts; and yet 



160 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

they carry no bright light of gratitude or devo- 
tion, which makes them wherever they are a 
witness for Christ. 

A very ordinary taper may dispel a great deal 
of darkness, if it burns with a clear flame. And 
so a very common nature, as the world judges it, 
may dispel a great deal of spiritual darkness, 
and be of unmeasured blessing, if it is lighted 
at the heavenly fires. A dear old lady who 
was very old and poor and feeble in health, but 
whose bright, cheery, Christian experience so 
pervaded the whole community where she lived 
that she was the most universally loved person- 
ality in it, was once asked by a company of 
younger people how it was that, despite ail the 
sorrows and vicissitudes of her life, she had come 
to have such a magnetic and winning personality? 
With wet eyes and softened tones, the dear old 
saint said: U A11 this I have obtained by making 
much of Jesus." And there is not one of us here 
to-night who may not obtain a constant and com- 
plete victory over every sin that besets us by 
making much of Jesus. 

Jere Macauley once left the platform in his 
chapel, and walking down the aisle amid the 
motley throng, said in substance: u Now ain't I 
respectable? Have n't I good clothes, and friends? 



The Night-watch. 



161 



Here 's Mr. Hatch, the banker, and a friend of 
mine. Why I Ve got money in my pocket 
[clinking the change as he spoke]. And here 's 
my watch. Ain't it handsome! It's a regular 
ticker [turning it over admiringly in his hand], 
But it has n't always been so with Jere Macauley. 
Wife and I have slept many a night on yonder 
dock, drunk. I've been to the 'works' several 
times. But the last time I was there I heard a 
minister, who said he had been a sinner too, but 
that God had pardoned him, and even thought 
him worthy to be a preacher. So I was encour- 
aged to think God could make something even 
out of Jere, and it led to my conversion. And 
what was for me is for you. Why, when wife 
there, and I went out on our visit to Chicago, 
they treated us as if we were distinguished peo- 
ple; and I just had to tell those folks I hn only 
Jere Macauley. It is the Lord Jesus who has 
done it all for me." And because of that perfect 
simplicity and devotion, seeking only to shine 
for the Master, God was able to use that poor 
taper to far more advantage to the world's good 
than many another splendid candle set in a 
costly candlestick of birth and culture and po- 
sition. 



l62 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



hi. 

We have finally a suggestion of watchfulness. 
In Christ's conception, the ideal Christian is not 
only one whose loins are girt about for power, 
and whose light is brightly burning, but whose 
whole attitude is like unto one who waits for his 
lord. If we are wise, we will be watchful and 
alert to catch the slightest wish of our Divine 
Master. Do you remember the story of Philip 
and the eunuch? How, as he was passing along, 
it did not take a thunderclap of Divine power to 
make known to him his duty; but the Spirit of 
God, in the still, small voice, whispered to his 
sensitive ear, and on the instant he ran after the 
chariot of the man whom he was to win to Christ. 
How many chariots pass by us unnoticed, because 
we are sluggish or asleep ! How many times we 
impoverish our days, and come to the even-time 
with a sense of spiritual pauperism, not because 
we have committed outbreaking sins, but because 
we have been dull and indifferent to the spiritual 
opportunities of the day that might have re- 
freshed us and glorified us! Margaret Sangster 
sings a little song entitled "At Sunset," which is 
worth a moment's meditation : 

"It is n't the thing you do, dear, 
It 's the thing you 've left undone, 



The Night-watch. 



Which gives you a bit of heartache 

At the setting of the sun. 
The tender word forgotten, 

The letter you did not write, 
The flower you might have sent, dear, 

Are your haunting ghosts to-night. 

The stone you might have lifted 

Out of a brother's way, 
The bit of heartsome counsel 

You were hurried too much to say ; 
The loving touch of the hand, dear, 

The gentle and winsome tone, 
That you had no time or thought for, 

With troubles enough of your own ; 

The little act of kindness, 

So easily out of mind, 
Those chances to be angels 

Which every mortal finds, — 
They come in night and silence, 

Each chill reproachful wraith, 
When hope is faint and flagging, 

And a blight has dropped on faith. 

For life is all too short, dear, 

And sorrow is all too great 
To suffer our slow compassion 

That tarries until too late ; 
And it 's not the thing you do, dear, 

It 's the thing you leave undone, 
Which gives you the bit of heartache 

At the setting of the sun." 

We ought to keep our souls responsive to the 
presence of God's Spirit. The photographer 
could teach us a lesson. He is well aware that 



1 64 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



the invisible, imponderable light will not come 
down on his plate like a power-press. He knows 
that he must woo it and win it to express itself 
in visible lines. He patiently labors, therefore, 
on the plate itself ; with chemical agents and 
careful elaboration, he sensitizes its surface till it 
feels the touch of light as keenly as a bare nerve 
feels a blow. So our souls need to be sensitized 
by completeness of self-surrender to God. By 
meditation upon God's goodness, by reading of 
the Bible, by secret communion and prayer, the 
soul may grow responsive to the slightest impress 
of the power from on high. If we are thus sen- 
sitive to the presence of God, we shall see him 
day by day in the affairs of life ; life will be en- 
larged to us; the horizon will lift, and we shall 
become spiritually far-sighted. 

There is an old picture of Columbus's first 
sight of the New World. It is a striking scene. 
Around him, on the deck of the vessel, a group 
of his sailors are lying asleep. The grandest 
event in modern history signifies nothing to 
them. In the stillness of the night stands the 
great explorer, with his hand above his forehead, 
and his whole soul shining in his eyes. That 
sublime fire of genius and purpose, which in the 
absence of steam had burned its own way across 



The Night-watch. 



the Atlantic, flames up now in his gaze. He has 
caught sight of a light moving about on the far- 
off shore. Toward that his thoughts, that out- 
strip the slow vessel, are all flying forward. So, 
brothers and sisters, we who are the disciples of 
Jesus Christ, while others sleep and are indiffer- 
ent, must be alert and in earnest to catch the 
purpose of our Master. Every day, every hour 
of our common life becomes full of romantic pos- 
sibilities when we live it in that spirit. Every 
man who needs our sympathy and our help then 
stands to us in the stead of our Master and our 
Lord; for has not Christ said that in the final 
accounting it shall be decided that, "Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me?" Only 
when all humanity comes to bear the stamp of 
Christ upon it in our view will it yield to us the 
wealth of gold which it is possible for the sons 
of God to gather. 

Through Rochester, New York, runs the Gen- 
esee River, between steep and rocky banks. 
There are falls in the river, and dark recesses. 
One day a man who lived in the city had just 
arrived on the train from a journey. He was 
anxious to go home and meet his wife and chil- 
dren. He was hurrying along the streets with a 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



bright vision of home in his mind, when he saw 
on the bank of the river a lot of excited people. 

"What is the matter ?" he shonted. 

" A boy is in the water!" several answered. 

"Why don't yon save him?" he asked. 

In a moment, throwing dowm his carpet-bag 
and pulling off his coat, he jumped into the 
stream, grasped the boy in his arms, and strug- 
gled with him to the shore. And as he wiped 
the water from his dripping face, and brushed 
back the hair, he cried till they could hear him 
a hundred yards away, "O God, it is my boy!" 
He plunged in for the boy of somebody else, and 
saved his own. The whole world is built on that 
key. The people who forget themselves in de- 
votion to God and their duty, and who see in 
their brother's good a wreath of glory on the 
head of Christ — all the universe is responsible 
for their care, and they realize the promise that 
"all things work together for good to them that 
love God." 



XL 



THE CHRISTIAN'S CREDENTIALS. 



"To be spiritually minded is life and peace/' — Romans 
viii, 6. 

HPHE supreme art of Christianity, or secret of 



A becoming a Christian, is to acquire the spirit 
of Jesus Christ. Paul says: "If any man have 
not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." To 
be spiritually minded, in the Christian sense, is to 
come into fellowship with the spirit of Christ; to 
come into such magnetic touch with him that his 
attitude toward God and man, toward life and 
death and eternity, toward this w r orld and other 
worlds, becomes our own. 

Margaret Fuller, I think, it was who said, 
"What the world needs more than anything else 
is a spiritually minded man of the world;" that 
is, a man who lives in the world, appreciates its 
needs, takes hold with strong hands to supply 
them, and yet has a reverent eye upon Him who 
made the world, and who is seeking to discipline 
and cultivate immortal natures within it. 

Christianity, therefore, more than any other 
religion, is an incarnate life. Lord Houghton, 




i68 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



the poet, has very clearly expressed the difference 
between the Koran and the Bible — between Mo- 
hammed and Jesus : 

" Mohammed's truth lay in a holy book, 
Christ's in a sacred life. 

So while the world rolls on from change to change 

And realms of thought expand, 
The letter stands without expanse or range, 

Stiff as a dead man's hand ; 
While, as the life-blood fills the growing form, 

The spirit Christ has shed 
Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm, 

More felt than heard or read." 

Our text, perhaps more definitely than any 
other Scripture in the Bible, sets forth in its es- 
sence this new life with which Christ is trans- 
forming the world. It asserts that the spiritual 
mind is life and peace. These are the creden- 
tials of a Christian. The Christian is to be a 
man vital with the life of God, alive in every de- 
partment of his being, and yet controlling that 
life in peace — the peace of Christ. 

Men and women bearing these credentials are 
the supreme evidence of Christianity. As an- 
other has well said: "The logic of Christianity 
is the demonstration of God in the life — the out- 
ward manifestation of a divine impulse. We are 
known by the fruits of the Spirit. Christianity 
discovers itself in the argument of facts, and 



The Christian's Credentials. 169 



needs no theory to explain its reality. Its out- 
come is love and charity, and its reward the ben- 
ediction of the poor and needy, and the gratitude 
of the sorrowing and the oppressed. Christ in 
the heart is the light of the life, shedding its 
divine influence upon the miseries surrounding 
us, and scattering the enshrouding gloom. " 

Life, then, is the first credential of a Chris- 
tian. As the leaves and flowers and fruit are the 
credentials of a tree, so a Christian life — a spir- 
itual life, a life bearing the rich fruits of the 
Spirit — are the credentials of a Christian. Christ 
makes this very clear in that wonderful "vine 
chapter 1 ' in John's Gospel. In that he says, 
"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he 
taketh away;" and again, " Herein is my Father 
glorified, that ye bear much fruit." 

Simply not to do is wicked. To be good for 

nothing is to be bad. The Master says: "He 

that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad." 

On these July afternoons the farmer has only to 

leave his mown grass alone, and the evening 

winds will toss and scatter it. The only way to 

keep it from scattering by neglect is to gather, 

and thus to save it. So he who does not gather 

with Christ, scatters abroad in his influence and 

life toward worldliness and sin ; 

12 



I/O 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



What a remarkable illustration there is of 
the truth of that statement in the circumstances 
connected with the death of John the Baptist ! 
A writer of one of the Gospels assures us that 
Herod greatly regretted to be compelled to de- 
stroy John the Baptist. He had heard him with 
great interest, and though John had rebuked 
him for his sin, he admired the brave preacher, 
and we have no reason to believe that he was 
angered by him, or had any revengeful feelings 
toward him. But he finally ordered his murder 
because of the weight of influence unconsciously 
brought to bear by his silent guests who were 
sitting about his table. 

We are told that he did not do it to please 
the dancing girl, nor her mother — Herodias — 
alone, but that he felt compelled to do it be- 
cause of his guests. Those people who sat 
about his table, by the pressure of their silence 
and inaction, drove this weak man to do the 
wicked deed. How many times do we see this 
repeated in our own day ! The ChristianChiirch 
is often responsible for, or at least a partaker of, 
other men's sins by its silence, when Legisla- 
tures or Congresses or other governmental of- 
ficials are being tempted or petitioned to out- 
rage righteousness. Bishop Hurst well says 



The Christian's Credentials. 171 

that "the Church that sleeps in the presence of 
crime, deserves to die, and be buried in the 
nearest ecclesiastical potter's field.' ' 

A dead tree cumbers the ground. It takes 
the place that might be made beautiful and 
serviceable by another tree. So a dead pro- 
fessor of the Christian life is a cumberer of the 
ground. xALl beautiful things about him are not 
able to clothe his own heart and life with 
beauty and grace, any more than it is possible 
for the beautiful living plants and flowers of 
the field to glorify the dead snag. On the other 
hand, a living tree finds all the world around, 
above, and beneath it, full of nourishment for 
itself. Life attracts life. Life in the tree at- 
tracts it from the ground, from the thunder- 
shower, from the atmosphere, and from the sun. 
Each tree attracts life after its kind. The oak 
finds w T hat is necessary to make acorns, and the 
pine, nutrition for its cones. 

So spiritual life attracts to itself that which 
feeds and sustains, beautifies and enlarges itself. 
And this w^orld, which sometimes seems so like 
chaos, which we are tempted to call a desert or 
a wilderness, is, after all, "peculiarly adapted to 
feed spiritual life. As in modern agriculture they 
are finding fertilizing rocks hidden aw T ay in the 



172 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



great sea-cliffs, so the soul that has learned the 
secret of God finds the way to the sweetest 
honey hidden among the flinty rocks. The 
young Samson, yet unspoiled by the lusts of a 
sensual life, found honey in the carcass of a lion. 
Jonathan, David's bosom friend, found honey on 
the battle-field. And so the Christian of to- 
day, who lives in communion with Christ and 
walks in fellowship with him, finds sustenance 
in the carcass of the lion he has slain, and abun- 
dant resources of blessing and comfort on the 
sorest battle-fields of his daily life. 

Many make the great mistake of supposing 
that the spiritual life consists in some marvel- 
ous, unexplained halo of glory, which may be 
bestowed, ready-made, upon the Christian. But 
this is not true. Spiritual life is given to the 
believing and seeking soul; but that life is to 
be developed, it is to grow and blossom and bear 
its fruit, in the midst of the hard conditions of 
this sinful world. We are to get ready for the 
heaven to come by living in the heavenly spirit, 
in the midst of ordinary earthly conditions. El- 
wyn Hoffman portrays, in a little song, the way 
distance often deceives us: 

" O, white is the sail in the Far Away, 
And dirty the sail at the dock; 



The Christian's Credentials. 173 



And fair are the cliffs across the bay, 

And black is the near-by rock. 
Though glitters the snow on the peaks afar, 

At our feet it is only white ; 
And bright is the gleam of the distant star, 

Though a lamp was twice as bright ! 

The rose that nods beyond our reach 

Is redder than rose of ours; 
Of thought that turns our tongues to speech, 

Our fellows leave greater dowers ; 
The waters that flow from the hidden springs 

Are sweeter than those by our side. 
So we strive through life for these distant things, 

And never are satisfied ! 

So we strive through life for these distant things ; 

But ever they hold their place, 
Till beats Life's drum, and Death doth come, 

And we look in his mocking face. 
And the distant things crowd near and close, 

And, faith ! they are dingy and gray ; 
For the charm is lost when the line is crossed 

'Twixt Here and Far Away ! 

For the charm is lost when the line is crossed, 
And we see all things as they are ; . 

And know that as clean is the sail at the dock 
As the sail on the sea afar; 

As bright the rays of the near-by lamp 
As the gleam of the distant star!" 

Let us learn the lesson, alike of the poet and 
the apostle. Our Christian life is to work out 
its glorious destiny here and now. If we are to 
have white sails to our ship on the sea of glass, 
we must have white sails now, as we unfurl 



i74 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



them to these earthly winds, or as they swing 
beside the every-day docks of our human life. 
If we are to be such lovable natures that angels 
shall be glad to associate with us in heaven, it 
is high time that we begin to develop, with all 
the devotion of our souls, the graces that make 
men and women lovable now. 

We need to rid ourselves of that dangerous 
heresy which divorces what is known as the 
spiritual from what we are pleased to call the 
secular in our human lives. To the really spir- 
itually-minded man all life is important and 
sacred. George MacDonald says: "Life and re- 
ligion are one, or neither is anything. I will 
not say," says the poet-preacher, " neither is 
growing to be anything. Religion is no way of 
life, no show of life, no observance of any sort. 
It is neither the food nor the medicine of being. 
It is life essential." 

Now, the splendid assurance of our text is, 
that it is possible to live a life thus vital and full 
of the glorious consciousness of being, and yet 
maintain peace. Indeed, life and peace are 
given as the two wings, as it were, of the spirit- 
ual life, or rather as the two great branches 
which grow up out of the soul's trunk of spirit- * 
ual being. 



The Christian's Credentials. 175 

To be alive, and yet to be at peace, is a prob- 
lem the world has never been able to solve. 
Wicked men seem sometimes, for awhile, to have 
peace ; but it is only w T hen they are dead to their 
condition — either unconscious of their danger, 
or unaware of their spiritual possibilities. Herod 
seemed to have peace for a time, after he had 
murdered John the Baptist; but when he heard 
about the miracles of Christ, all this false peace 
forsook him, and he shuddered with fear as he 
exclaimed: "It is John, whom I beheaded!" 

The Christian is the only man on earth who 
is both alive and at peace at the same time. 
Wicked men have life, but no peace, or peace, 
but no life; but a Christian has both. This 
peaceful life, or living peace, is not a ready- 
made grace, but one woven by the exercise of 
one's own gifts. It is a peace in the midst of 
trial and hardship, which is possible because it 
is triumphant over them — a peace which is the 
outgrowth of a love, a devotion, a faith, which 
casts out all fear. 

Dr. Fisher, editor of the Pacific Christian Ad- 
vocate, relates a beautiful little incident which 
occurred up among the summits of the Northern 
Sierras, in California. A pioneer family lived in 
a lonely cabin, which stood in a clearing of a 



176 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



few acres, in the heart of a dense mountain for- 
est. It was a region w^here bears, catamounts, 
and California lions yet resisted the approach of 
civilization, and where almost every night their 
dismal howlings could be heard. One night the 
father was absent, and only the mother, a little 
girl twelve years old, and the smaller children, 
were at home. About midnight the mother was 
taken violently ill. To the child it seemed that 
she must soon have help, or that she must die. 
A neighbor must be called. The nearest house 
was over a mile distant, by a narrow mountain 
trail, through dark woods, where wild beasts 
made their lair. The bravest hunter would w r alk 
warily through that mountain defile, after night- 
fall, even with his gun. But the heroic little 
girl did not hesitate. She ran that perilous 
path alone, in the dead of night, to seek help for 
the dear sufferer. "Were you not afraid?" Dr. 
Fisher asked. "No," she said; "I saw only the 
white face of my mother all the way." 

Love conquered fear, and gave wings to her 
feet, and made the darkness to be as noonday 
about her. She ran that dangerous mountain 
trail at midnight in perfect peace, so far as the 
danger was concerned, because of the love which 
exalted her. So the Christian may pursue the 



The Christian's Credentials. 177 

loneliest trail of human life, through dark forests 
where he can not see, near the lair of spiritual 
enemies, and yet walk in perfect peace, if his 
soul is aflame with love for Christ, and he is 
buoyed up by devotion to the great work which 
his Master is doing in the world. 

Selfishness is the greatest foe of the Chris- 
tian's peace. If the little girl in the Sierra 
Mountains had forgotten her mother, and her 
great love for her, and had begun to think about 
her own condition, and let her mind run upon 
the personal dangers she was undergoing, she 
would have given up her brave mission entirely. 
It was her self-forgetfulness that made it pos- 
sible. So it is through self-forgetfulness in 
service for others that the Christian comes to the 
highest peace. 

A diver, who went down to work on the 
steamship Vescaya, which was sunk in a colli- 
sion off Barnegat Light, had a weird experience. 
It was a difficult job, so two divers were sent 
down — one of them to remain on deck, in sixty 
feet of water, to act as second tender to the other 
diver, who went below. The latter had been 
below but a few minutes when three jerks came 
over the life-line. When he had been hauled 
up on the deck, he was so unnerved that he for- 



i 7 8 



Heavenly Trade-winds, 



got he was still in sixty feet of water, and sig- 
naled to have his helmet removed. When both 
divers had been hauled to the surface, he said 
that while he was working through a gangway 
he had seen two huge objects coming toward 
him; and nothing could dissuade him from the 
belief that he had seen two submarine ghosts 
until the other diver went down, and discovered 
that there was a mirror at the end of the gang- 
way, and that the diver had seen the reflection 
of his own legs, vastly enlarged, coming to- 
ward him. 

Many a Christian has lost his peace, and 
given way to terror and confusion, and finally to 
despair, through too much looking at himself. 
A morbid self-inspection is a serious danger to 
some temperaments. But the Christian who 
forgets himself in devotion to his Master, and 
goes steadily on about his duty, trusting the re- 
sult to Him, has a peace which the world knows 
nothing of, and which the world has as little 
power to destroy as it has to bestow. There is 
an old story told of how Whitelock, w r hen he was 
about to embark as Cromwell's envoy to Sweden 
in 1655, was much disturbed in mind as he 
rested in Harwich on the preceding night, which 
was very stormy. He paced the floor reflecting 



The Christian's Credentials. 179 



on the distracted state of the nation. A confi- 
dential servant slept in an adjacent bed to the 
one prepared for Whitelock. Finding that his 
master could not sleep, he said: 

"Pray, sir, will you give me leave to ask you 
a question?" 

"Certainly." 

"Pray, sir, don't you think God governed the 
world very well before you came into it?" 
" Undoubtedly." 

"And pray, sir, don't you think that he will 
govern it quite as well when you are gone out 
of it?" 

"Certainly." 

"Then, sir, pray excuse me, but don't you 
think you may as well trust Him to govern it as 
long as you are in it?" 

To this question Whitelock had nothing to re- 
ply, and, profiting by the rebuke, he was soon 
able to quiet his disturbed mind and fall into a 
peaceful sleep. 

" Do the nearest duty, 

Grateful that your hand 
May do the work that angels 

Never could have planned ; 
So shall love eternal 

Into life be wrought, 
And a blessing spring from 

E'en your humblest thought." 



XII. 



THE RIVER OF PEACE. 



" Then had thy peace been as a river.'' — Isaiah xiwiii, 18. 
*HIS ought to be a refreshing theme on this 



A summer Sunday morning. In our human 
lives, broken as they are so often into fragment- 
ary experiences, the cry of the soul for peace is 
a very natural one, and common to us all. There 
are hours of disappointment and weariness in the 
most successful and prosperous careers, when we 
sigh with the poet: 

"O for the peace that floweth like a river, 

Making life's desert places bloom and smile; 
O for the faith to grasp heaven's bright 'forever.' 
Amid the shadows of earth's 'little while!"' 

It is suggestive of the honor which God puts 
upon us as his children, that he uses such splen- 
did things with which to compare the emotions 
and experiences of our lives. The picture we 
are to study is one of peculiar dignity and 
beauty. There is in all nature nothing more in- 
teresting, more beautiful, or more beneficent than 
a river. 

The history of the human race has been writ- 




180 



The River of Peace, 181 

ten along the course of its famous streams. The 
Nile, the Euphrates, the Indus, the Ganges, and 
the Jordan of the Eastern world, and the Rhine, 
the Danube, the Tiber, the Rubicon, the Seine, 
and the Thames of Europe, have directed the 
stream of history, as well as the course of em- 
pire and civilization. In our own land, how 
great a part have the Hudson, the Ohio, the Mis- 
souri, the Mississippi, and the beautiful Colum- 
bia played in the building up of our great Re- 
public ! 

It is this splendid figure of the river which 
God uses to describe the peace which is the pos- 
sible and normal condition of a Christian soul. 
Let us study the figure with sincere hearts, and 
endeavor to find in it the water of life. 

I. 

A Christian's peace is like a river in its high 
and lofty source. A river can not be produced 
without lofty mountains from whence to draw its 
nourishment. It must be fed by the clouds, and 
have for its reservoir the vast treasures of the 
heavens. There never was a king powerful 
enough, or a great trust rich enough, to be able 
to produce a river. Great rivers are born among 
the lonely mountain summits, far away from the 



182 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



haunts of man, where the high pinnacles of the 
rocks wrestle with the winter snows, and, in that 
lofty communion with nature's God, win the rich 
abundance which is to refresh the valleys thou- 
sands of miles away. 

Henry M. Stanley discovered the source of the 
Nile in the far-off Mountains of the Moon, many 
hundreds and even thousands of miles away from 
the peoples that depend so entirely upon it for 
their very existence. The Mississippi River, 
which gives life and fertility to the great middle 
section of our own country, has its loftiest source 
through the Missouri among the loft}', snow-clad 
heights of the Rocky Mountains. The Columbia 
River, the most splendid and magnificent of them 
all, in the purity of its blue floods and the 
grandeur of the scenery through which it flows, 
is born amid the loftiest heights of the North, in 
a sublime and awful region where snow-clad 
summits stand around in groups, 

"Like sudden ghosts in snowy shrouds, 
New broken through their earthly bars, 
And eagles Trhet with crooked beaks 
The lofty limits of the peaks." 

Thus it is that the great rivers, far above and 
beyond man's power to produce, are pre-emi- 
nently the creation and gift of God. 



The River of Peace. 183 



So the source of the Christian's peace is in 
the heaven above. No minister, however em- 
inent; no church, however sacred or ancient; no 
ceremony, however solemn or magnificent, is 
able to bestow peace upon a human soul. True 
peace can only have its beginning in lonely and 
secret fellowship with God. As Jesus sought the 
mountains in the night to commune with the 
Father, and came down calm and peaceful in the 
morning to bear unmoved the insults of the mob, 
so we shall find that peace comes into the heart 
in hours of quiet meditation and communion 
with God. 

In those lofty places of secret fellowship, 
clouds of divine grace, big with richest mercies, 
fall in abundant showers upon us, filling the deep 
places of the soul, and, flowing on, give comfort 
in all the ordinary and trying experiences of our 
lives. 

II. 

The peace of the good man is like a river, in 
the way in which it is sustained. The river must 
be sustained by the rain and the snow which come 
from the same great reservoirs from whence it 
had its origin. So the river of peace in our souls 
can only be sustained by prayer and the study 
of God's Word. How many there are whose 



Heavenly Trade-winds, 



hearts present only an empty channel, like a 
dried-up river's bed in time of some great 
drought! This need never be our sad condition. 
The Christian's peace is called, in the Bible, 
"the peace of God," because it must ever come 
fresh from him ; and, to those who trust him and 
live in constant fellowship with him, he gives 
always an abundant supply. 

The beautiful hymn in our Hymnal beginning 

" Commit thou all thy griefs 
And ways into His hands," 

was written by. Paul Gerhardt at a time when, 
with his wife, he had been driven out of Berlin 
because of his evangelical faith. They were so 
poor that they had to travel on foot in their 
exile; and one evening, while his wife, greatly 
depressed, was resting from the weary day's 
journey in a little wayside inn, Gerhardt strolled 
away into a little grove, meditating upon God's 
strange providences, when the thought of this 
hymn was born in his mind and heart, and he 
wrote out the first verses on a little slip of paper 
as he walked back to the inn : 

"Commit thou all thy griefs 
And wa} T s into His hands, 
To his sure trust and tender care 
Who earth and heaven commands. 



The River of Peace. 185 

Who points the clouds their course, 

Whom winds and seas obey, 
He shall direct thy wandering feet, 

He shall prepare thy way. 

Give to the winds thy fears, 

Hope, and be undismayed; 
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears, 

He shall lift up thy head. 
Through waves and clouds and storms 

He gently clears thy way; 
Wait thou his time, so shall this night 

Soon end in joyous day." 

As he entered his room in the inn, and saw 
his weeping wife and remembered his helpless- 
ness in a worldly point of view, he added two 
other stanzas without saying anything of them 
to her: 

"Still heavy is thy heart? 

Still sink thy spirits down? 
Cast off the weight, let fear depart, 

And every care begone! 
What though thou rulest not ? 

Yet heaven and earth and hell 
Proclaim, God sitteth on the throne 

And ruleth all things well ! 

Leave to his sovereign sway 

To choose and to command ; 
So shalt thou, wondering, own his way, 

How wise, how strong his hand ! 
Far, far above thy thought 

His counsel shall appear, 
When fully he the work hath wrought 

That caused thy needless fear." 

i 



186 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

It was but an hour after these beautiful 
verses were written when two men rode up to 
the inn door and inquired for the Lutheran 
preacher and poet, Paul Gerhardt. Although 
he dreaded some new calamity, he was brave 
as ever in his stand for the right, and cried out : 
"I am Paul Gerhardt; what will you have?" 
"We are ambassadors from Duke William," re- 
plied one of the men, "who not only sends you 
his earnest sympathy in your persecutions, but 
invites you hereafter to make your home with 
him." With tears coursing down his cheeks, 
but with beaming countenance, he went back to 
his wife, and, telling her the good news, he 
handed her the hymn he had just written, and, 
opening the paper, she was the first one to read 
the words that have comforted so many thou- 
sands of hearts since. God is as able to sustain 
our peace as he was that of the exile poet. 

ill. 

Peace is like a river in its onward course. It 
can not choose its channel, but must flow within 
its own. The channel is often rugged and 
winding. The beauty of its stream, so far as its 
harmonious course is concerned, is often de- 
stroyed by chafing on the rocks. Ever and 



The River of Peace. 



187 



anon it is broken by cataracts, and is often lost 
to view in the deep, dark shadows of overhang- 
ing mountains and dense forests. 

No river is able to move all its obstacles out 
of the way, yet the river does not give up in de- 
spair because it is opposed. It goes on plung- 
ing around the boulders, singing merrily where 
it frets against the rocks, rising to a hallelujah 
chorus in some great waterfall. Indeed the 
rougher the channel, the more picturesque, the 
more romantic, the more musical the stream. 

We ought to get out of this a lesson, teach- 
ing us something of the conditions of the peace 
of God promised to us. Our peace is to flow 
through its own channel — a channel walled in 
by our own hearts, not somebody's else. It is a 
channel that will many times have clouds over- 
shadowing it. It will run through many a 
rough and rocky mountain gorge. For it is a 
river on earth, with the conditions of the earth 
about it, and we must not expect that all the op- 
position will be taken out of the way for it. 

Paul knew what the peace of God was — the 
peace "that passeth all understanding," "the 
peace that casts out all fear" — and he lived, "al- 
ways rejoicing;" yet he had opposition enough, 
surely. He was stoned, beaten with rods, ship- 



188 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



wrecked, made to fight with beasts, and endured 
long imprisonments. What a rugged channel 
that was for a human life, and for a river of 
peace ! And yet the waters that flowed therein 
were from heaven itself. It is a characteristic 
of earthly rivers, that where the channel is the 
roughest, the waters are the purest and sweetest. 
In the summer-time we like to go away up into 
the mountains where the stream is whipped into 
foam upon the rocks, plunges wildly over the cas- 
cades, cold and fragrant and fresh from its heav- 
enly distillery among the cloud-topped mountain 
summits. So many of us have found that when 
the life channel was most rugged, the peace of 
the soul was most delicious. 

Good old Doctor Muhlenberg wrote the 
hymn, "I would not live alway," when he had 
the blues ; and, on recovering from his depression, 
he never wanted to hear it sung, and always re- 
gretted that it had gotten into the hymn-books. 

Lyman Beecher was once congratulated by 
one of his boys that his battles were all fought ; 
but the old hero was indignant, and, drawing 
himself up to his full height, exclaimed: "I 
thank no boy of mine to talk to me so. If I 
could have my way, I'd buckle on the armoi 
and fight the battles all over again." The ag- 



The River of Peace. 189 



gressive, triumphant spirit which only gains in 
force by opposition, — that is the characteristic 
of the peace coming to us from God. 

When Uncle John Yassar, the humble colpor- 
teur, was taken prisoner by the Confederates at 
Gettysburg, he went straight up to General 
Early and said: "General, do you love Jesus?" 
The general said to his orderly: "Let that man 
go, or we shall have a prayer-meeting all the 
way to Richmond." A life so abounding in 
spiritual peace can not be captured or put down. 

IV. 

Peace is like a river in its gracious and be- 
nevolent influence. We can not conceive of 
anything more delightful in its beneficence and 
generosity than a river. Throughout its entire 
course it is constantly bestowing its gifts on 
every hand. Wherever it proceeds on its wind- 
ing way, it waters the earth and everything that 
grows therein. The great trees — the fir and the 
pine, the hemlock and the spruce of the moun- 
tains, the oak, the maple, and the ash of the 
foot-hills, the alder, the birch, and the willow of 
the lower valleys — all send their rootlets into the 
river, and drink. The horses, the patient cattle, 
the flocks of sheep, come to the river, and are re- 



190 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

freshed. Farm-house, village and city grow up 
about it, and draw ever from its generous bosom. 

The very life of a river is bound up in its 
generosity. If it were to cease to flow, it would 
stagnate and become, instead of an artery full of 
life-blood, a cause of plague and death. 

So it is with the peace of the Christian. He 
can not have it unless it is his purpose to be 
generous and beneficent. Many lives are empty 
because they are selfish. Many people are only 
clanging cymbals because they have refused to 
make the music which would have charmed sor- 
rowing ears. We are disciples of Him who 
" went about doing good." And we can not 
have his peace unless we follow in his foot- 
steps. As the river brings the snows of the far- 
off mountains and the treasures of the lofty 
clouds across hundreds of miles of desert to re- 
fresh the hot and dusty town and city, so the 
Christian, who is true to God and lives in blessed 
communion and fellowship with Christ, brings 
down a heavenly element to gladden the earth 
and to refresh downcast and despairing souls. 

v. 

The Christian's peace is like a river in its 
growth. It has been my happy fortune to stand 



The River of Peace. 191 



at the birthplace of some great streams, and to 
see the single little pool on the flat top of a 
mountain range which marked the beginning of 
some great river; to see oozing out from the 
pool a little stream, the course of which could 
be stayed or changed by my hand ; and then 
to watch it as it grows until it becomes a rill, 
and from the right and left other rills trickle 
down from beneath the moss-covered rocks; 
and then it is a brook, a place to throw your 
trout-line with hope; and other brooks come 
down through narrow little mountain canons, 
and the larger brook gets a song in its heart; 
it is big enough now to turn a mill, and plunges 
wildly on; other brooks large enough for mill- 
streams unite with it in solemn trysting places, 
and so on and on, until it becomes a river. 

At first you could stop it with your hand; 
farther down you could leap across it with a sin- 
gle bound; still lower, and you seek out large 
boulders, and jump from one to another, and still 
cross with dry shoes ; and then you have to ford 
it; a little farther on you must put a bridge 
across it; then great allies come in from north 
and south, adding their floods, deepening the 
channel. It is too wide now to be bridged, and 
you must have a ferry. At first this is held in 



192 



He a vexl y Trade - winds. 



place by a rope. Farther on, as the river is 
broader, a long, iron cable sustains the ferry-boat 
in place ; and then, as the river still widens and 
deepens, the cable is in turn outgrown, and the 
steamer, with its heart of fire, is your only prac- 
ticable method of crossing the wide-spreading 
river. So the peace of God in the heart is like a 
river in its growth. 

The Bible assures us, and our observation has 
taught us, that, when first converted, we are as 
babes in the Christian family, to be fed with 
"the sincere milk of the word." But we are to 
grow and wax strong in the faith. As we exer- 
cise the gifts which God has given us, Christian 
peace is developed. Remember that growth 
comes by activity. Many people, who are com- 
plaining that the Christian life has never meant 
for them what it did to Abraham or Elijah or 
Elisha or Paul, if they will look into their own 
lives, will see that the fault has been in their own 
failure to exercise the gifts given, and the oppor- 
tunities for service, which would have developed 
within them a river of spiritual life and a flow of 
heavenly peace a thousand-fold more rich and 
splendid than anything the world, for which it 
was sacrificed, has been able to give. 

The Protestant Episcopal missionary, Mr. 



The River of Peace. 193 



Aitkin, who visited this country some years 
since, declared that there was a spiritual torrid 
zone, as in nature, and that the people who did 
not work spiritually had no spiritual vigor or 
strength, but became only dress-parade members 
of the Church, one blast of adversity being able 
to annihilate them. He described a number of 
varieties of them ; such as the get-up-late-Sunday- 
morning Christians, or the seldom-go-to-church 
Christians, or the stay-at-home-from-prayer-meet- 
ing-and-Sunday-school Christians, or the pay-as- 
little-as-possible Christians, or the drink-a-little- 
wine Christians, or the just-a-little-bit-crooked- 
in-business Christians, or the run-around-to- 
other-churches Christians, or the do n't-want-to- 
do-anything Christians. 

May the good Lord save us from becoming a 
part of this catalogue ! These characteristics are 
indications of spiritual poverty. They reveal a 
lack of that wholesome growth, that steady spir- 
itual development, that constantly enlarging 
soul — growing more and more like God — feeling 
as the years go on that we are coming to be filled 
with the great purposes which God has to ac- 
complish in the world. 

I trust that no one of us will push away the 
solemn questioning of this thought from our own 



i94 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

hearts. Are we growing in grace? Are we be- 
coming more heavenly-minded? Is the spirit 
of self-denial for Christ's sake, for the sake of the 
poor and the helpless, growing in power in our 
lives? Does the current of our lives set toward 
righteousness and true holiness ? The angels are 
glad over "one sinner" that repents. Do our 
hearts bound with joy at the same glad tidings? 
Let us put these questions honestly, and seek to 
know if we are truly growing in grace and in the 
knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord. 

VI. 

Finally, the Christian's peace is like a river, 
at the close of its course on earth. When a great 
river like the Mississippi or the Columbia or the 
Amazon nears the ocean, the great sea does not 
wait for the river, but comes with welcoming 
hands for hundreds of miles up its channel to 
meet it. Away up at the cascades of the Colum- 
bia, the ocean tides rise and fall every day. And 
so when the Christian draws near to death, 
heaven comes to meet him. That is what Jesus 
means when he says: "In my Father's house are 
many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will 



The River of Peace. 195 



coine again, and receive you unto myself ; that 
where I am, there ye may be also." 

Not alone shall you walk into the dark 
shadows. No, indeed ! You may put your hand 
up into the shadows over your head, and know 
that God shall clasp it and lead you safely on. 
With David you can say: "Though I walk 
through the vallev and shadow of death, I will 
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and 
thy staff they comfort me." 



XIII. 



THE CONVERSION OF A TAX-COLLECTOR. 

"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that 
which was lost." — Luke xix, io. 

THERE is no more entertaining story in the 
Bible than this one which tells how Christ 
found Zaccheus, and how Zaccheus found his 
Lord. The man himself is interesting. There 
is always something interesting about the man 
whom the whole community hates. He has the 
sort of personal force about him that makes its 
mark wherever he goes, one way or another. 
Longfellow, in his "Hiawatha," sings of how you 
can trace the water-courses in different seasons, 
each season by a mark of its own: 

"You could trace them through the valley, 
By the rushing in the spring-time, 
By the alders in the summer, 
By the white fog in the autumn, 
By the black line in the winter." 

Zaccheus was the kind of man who always 
left his mark. It was a black line in his com- 
munity. He had been shrewd and grasping in 
collecting the hated Roman tax, and he was uni- 
versally unpopular. 
196 



Conversion of a Tax-collector. 197 

If a respectable citizen was out walking, and 
he saw Zaccheus coming up the street, he would 
cross over to the other side or go around a block 
rather than have to meet him face to face. The 
business men who had to pay over their revenue 
taxes to him would have died rather than touch 
his hated hand in social equality. His family 
was ostracized. There were times, I suspect, 
when Zaccheus did not care much about this. 
He was fond of money, and the business paid 
well. And as his riches increased, and he was 
able to wear fine clothes, live in a good house, 
and loan money at a high rate of interest to the 
very people who hated him most, he crushed his 
better feelings down beneath his iron will and 
said: "I do n't care what they think, so long as 
I make money, and get to be the richest man in 
the town." 

There are scores of men in Brooklyn, outside of 
the tax-collector's office, who are hardening their 
hearts and crushing their consciences under their 
heel, and trying to make themselves believe that 
they are satisfied with the gold which they get 
in exchange for manhood and those noble re- 
turns which come from brotherly sympathy and 
Christian fellowship. 

But down at the bottom Zaccheus was not 



198 Heavenly Trade-winds, 

satisfied. He had lonely hours when he longed 
for love and fellowship; days when the ghosts of 
his departed youth, and all the ideals and ambi- 
tions of his young manhood came back and 
looked on him sadly. At such times poor Zac- 
cheus would shudder and say: "I 'd give half of 
all my wealth if I knew how to get out of this 
ditch of selfishness and sin in which I have 
mired myself." But all these gloomy medita- 
tions had ended in nothing but hopelessness, 
until one day the news came that Jesus Christ 
was nearing the gates of Jericho; and, with the 
news, the startling rumor that a certain old blind 
man, a beggar, named Bartimeus, whom every- 
body knew, had stopped the procession that 
gathered about Christ, and for his audacity had 
gotten his eyesight, and could now see as well as 
anybody. 

Zaccheus had heard about Christ before; for 
this tax-collector was one of those men whose 
ears are always open, wide-awake to catch any- 
thing of interest that is goirfg on in the country. 
And so he had heard about Jesus, and there were 
many things about him that interested Zaccheus 
very much. In the first place, he noticed that 
the Pharisees and the leading business men 
among his own special enemies were also the 



Conversion of a Tax-collector, 199 

enemies of Christ. U A fellow-feeling makes us 
wondrous kind/' and Zaccheus had a fellow- 
feeling for Christ. 

The more he heard about this new teacher, 
and especially the more he heard him reviled by 
his enemies, the more Zaccheus longed to get 
acquainted with him, and for an opportunity to 
show him hospitality and kindness. And now 
he is coming to the town. Zaccheus hears it 
with the rest, and as the crowd began to 
gather — excitedly no doubt, as when there is a 
fire — Zaccheus pressed his way toward the front 
to get sight of the Master. But here he was at a 
disadvantage ; for he was a little man with short 
legs, and in a crowd he had no chance to see at 
all. But Zaccheus had not worked his way up 
to be the richest publican in the town, in spite 
of opposition and hatred, for nothing. He was 
accustomed to use his head on difficult occa- 
sions. So, looking on beyond the crowd, and in 
direct line of the route along which Christ must 
come, he saw there was a sycamore-tree not so 
big but that a wiry little Jew might climb it, and 
yet big enough to bear up a small man. So Zac- 
cheus pressed his way through, and ran on ahead 
of the crowd, toward the tree. I suspect some 
fellows in the crowd shouted out: u There goes 



200 



HE A VENL Y T RADE - WINDS. 



Zaccheus! He '11 get fooled this time. He 's go- 
ing to tax the new-comer, I suppose; thinks he 's 
a rich man, and will have a big custom tax to 
pay. He '11 feel little enough when he sees him 
coming on foot, and without money enough to 
pay his night's lodging/' But Zaccheus was not 
accustomed to hear anything good said of himself, 
so he probably did not listen, but got himself fixed 
for a good look at this new teacher, whose fame 
was beginning to fill all the land. As he came 
along, Zaccheus was wonderfully impressed with 
his appearance. It was different from anything 
he had ever seen. Compared with the hawk- 
faced money-getters with whom Zaccheus had 
been accustomed to strive and contend, the gen- 
tle and noble features of the Christ seemed, as 
they indeed were, a revelation from heaven itself. 

As Zaccheus looked on that face, all his old 
self-disgust came back to him with redoubled 
force, and he said within himself: "Ah! that is 
it! I want to feel as that man looks. What 
is the use of money, that you have to trade your 
soul to get, compared with the open conscience 
and the gentle, sympathetic brotherliness that 
shine out from those calm eyes?" 

But just then Zaccheus noticed that Christ 
seemed to be seeking some one specially, and he 



Conversion of a Tax-collector. 201 

looked about wondering who it could be, sup- 
posing he was looking for the chief rabbi, or 
some noted doctor of the law in the town — some 
man famous among the learned coterie of Jeri- 
cho. Perhaps Zaccheus was a little envious, and 
as Christ was now drawing close to the tree, on 
a branch of which he sat, he longed that the 
Savior might at least cast one glance his way. 

And then a wonderful thing happened. Zac- 
cheus was never able to tell quite how it was. 
Suddenly the Master looked up into his face, and 
he found those gentle but heart-searching eves 
shining to the very depths of his soul, hunting 
for the manhood that was still left, weighed 
down beneath all the bags of ill-gotten gold. 
Christ's lips opened, and the notes of the sweet- 
est voice Zaccheus ever heard fell on his charmed 
ears, and the words — his heart was in his throat 
as he listened, they seemed too good to be true, 
and if he had not been the only Zaccheus in the 
town he would have believed a mistake had 
been made. 

"Zaccheus," the Master said, "make haste, 
and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy 
house." 

Zaccheus had his faults, but sluggardliness 
was not one of them. Whatever he was, he 

14 



202 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

was not a slow man. One of the chief factors 
of his success had been that when he had a 
chance for a good bargain, he never let it lie 
and get dusty, or gave the other party time to 
change his mind. So Zaccheus made haste, and 
came down, and received the Lord joyfully. 

Now, Mr. Moody says that right there oc- 
curred Zaccheus's conversion, " somewhere be- 
tween the limb and the ground." Anyhow, Zac- 
cheus had received a sufficient revelation of the 
heart of Christ to give him hope, and to put 
some element of joy into his soul. How proudly 
the little man led off toward his house! Little 
did he mind the mutterings of the crowd; but 
there were plenty of them. On every side the 
remark was made, and bitter looks went with 
the words: "He is gone to be guest with a man 
that is a sinner." But that was just like Christ. 
Who ever knew Jesus Christ to go home with 
anybody else but a sinner, when there was a 
chance to do him good and to save his soul? 
We want to catch that spirit, and bend the whole 
energy of our lives, not first of all to please our 
neighbors, but to do them good. 

It was the glory of Handel, the great musi- 
cian, that he valued his work more because of 
its good influence than on account of the fame 



Conversion of a Tax-collector. 203 

it brought to him. It is related that when the 
"Messiah" was first brought out in London, 
the performance produced a deep impression. 
"x\men!" sounded through the vast arches of 
the church. "Amen!" responded Handel, as he 
slowly let the staff fall with which he had been 
beating time. When he left the church, a royal 
equipage stood in waiting, by the king's com- 
mand, to convey him to the palace. George II, 
surrounded by his whole household and many 
nobles of the court, received the illustrious 
musician. 

"Well, Master Handel," said the king, after 
a hearty welcome, "it must be owned you have 
made us a noble present in your ' Messiah.' It 
is a brave piece of work!" 

"It is," said Handel, looking the monarch in 
the face, well pleased. 

"It is, indeed!" said the king. "And now, 
tell me what I can do* to express my thanks to 
you for it." 

"Give a place to the young man who sang 
the tenor part so well," said Handel, "and I will 
ever be grateful to your majesty." 

This young man was one whom Handel had 
befriended. 

"Joseph shall have a place from this day in 



204 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

our chapel as first tenor," said the king. u But 
have you nothing to ask for yourself? I would 
gladly show my gratitude to you, in your own 
person, for the fair entertainment you have pro- 
vided us all in your ' Messiah.' " 

The flush of indignation mantled Handel's 
cheek as he answered, in a disappointed tone: 
"Sire, I have endeavored, not to entertain you, 
but to make you better." 

What a glorious answer was that, and what a 
noble spirit it revealed ! The earthly monarch 
was not feared by Handel, because the musician 
lived in the conscious presence of the King of 
kings and Lord of lords. 

Christ, true to his mission, went home with 
Zaccheus to do him good. Indeed, he had been 
doing him good from the first moment he looked 
into his face; and as Zaccheus walked along 
with him toward his home, the Holy Spirit re- 
vealed to him that this was indeed the Messiah. 
And as soon as they got into the house, Zaccheus 
turned to the Lord, and said: "Behold, Lord, 
the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if 
I have taken anything from any man by false 
accusation [or, as the New Version has it, "If I 
have wrongfully exacted aught from any man"], 
I restore him fourfold." When you remember 



Conversion of a Tax-collector. 205 

that Zaccheus was a Jew, you won't have any 
trouble in believing that, whether Zaccheus was 
converted between the "limb and the ground" 
or not, he is certainly converted now. One of 
the characteristics of a Jew is not only his pecul- 
iar shrewdness in a bargain and in devising 
means to make money, but he has remarkable 
staying qualities in the art of keeping it. 

A new novelist by the name of Isaac Zang- 
will, an English Jew, has suddenly sprung into 
fame in London, and will certainly become fa- 
mous in this country also, because of the graphic 
way in which he depicts the character of his 
own people. In the book of short stories which 
has made him famous — "The Children of the 
Ghetto" — there is one very unique character 
called "The Rose of the Ghetto." Rose's father, 
who is a shrewd master-tailor, does not come 
forward, as he agreed to do, with the dowry of 
the bride, when the bridal party arrives at the 
synagogue. The bridegroom, upheld in his po- 
sition by the marriage-broker, stood firm. Not 
until the dowry was paid in full would the 
bride be led under the canopy. The day went 
on. The situation became intolerable. Other 
couples went under the canopy, but not they. 
At last, L,eibel, the bridegroom, wearied. The 



2o6 Heavenly Trade -winds. 

long day's combat had told upon him. The re- 
port of the bride's distress had weakened him. 
Even Sugarman, the marriage -broker, had lost 
his proud assurance of victory. But he cheered 
on his man still: "One could always surrender 
at the last moment." Finally, through the ges- 
ticulating assembly swept that peculiar murmur 
of expectation which crowds know when the 
procession is coming at last. By some myste- 
rious magnetism, all were aware that the bride 
herself — the poor hysteric bride — had left the 
paternal camp, and was coming, in person to 
plead, it was supposed, with her mercenary lover. 

At the sight of her, in her bridal robes, Lei- 
bePs heart melted. You see he was really in 
love with Rose. She laid her hand appealingly 
on his arm, while a heavenly light came into her 
face — the expression of a Joan of Arc animating 
her country. 

"Do not give in, Iyeibel!" she said. "Do not 
have me! Do not let them persuade thee! By 
my life, thou must not! Go home!" 

At the last moment the vanquished father 
produced the balance of the dower, and they 
lived happily ever afterwards. 

Now, Zaccheus belonged to a race like that; 
and when he stands up before the Lord, and 



Conversion of a Tax-collector, 207 

with full heart exclaims, " Behold, one-half of 
my goods I give to the poor, and whatever I 
have exacted wrongfully I will make restitution 
in four times as much," we know that a new 
light has come into his life. His old standards 
of value are broken down. He has found some- 
thing of infinitely more worth than money — a 
real, genuine conversion. From underneath the 
tax-collector, Christ has dug out the man. 

Dr. Way land Hoyt has unearthed a most in- 
teresting story over in Minneapolis. It is the 
story of a violin. Herman Schifferl, now a violin- 
maker in Minneapolis, learned his art in Munich ; 
and afterward, in Paris, was employed by the 
most celebrated maker of violins in France. He 
became a courier for Englishmen, and achieved 
an excellent reputation among the English no- 
bility. But after awhile he settled down in Pisa, 
Italy, at violin-making again. While he was 
there, Lord Salisbury, now the ex-prime minister 
of England, visited the city, and, being himself 
a splendid musician, he desired to buy a fine 
violin. There are so many imitations and frauds 
in violins that it is a hard thing to be sure of a 
good one. Young Schifferl was introduced to 
Lord Salisbury' as one who, through his great 
knowledge of violins, could aid him. 



2o8 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



After a long search a suitable one was found, 
and purchased for a large sum. When Lord 
Salisbury had purchased the violin he scratched 
on the outside of it with a penknife, " Salisbury, 
1867. " There the matter ended, so far as the 
young violin-maker was concerned, for twenty- 
seven years. Soon after this he removed to this 
country, and settled down in his business in 
Minneapolis. In 1875 he noticed in a New 
York paper that Lord Salisbury had had a violin 
stolen, and offered for it a great reward. It in- 
terested him for the time, but soon passed out 
of his mind. Only the other day, however, he 
chanced to take down, from the long row of 
violins brought into his place of business to be 
mended, one which, the moment it was in his 
hands, caused him to break forth in an exclama- 
tion of startled surprise ; for he held in his grasp 
an instrument worth thousands of dollars, and 
the identical one which he had bought twenty- 
seven years ago for Lord Salisbury, in Pisa. The 
identification was complete. Not only the name 
of the maker was there; but, after rubbing off 
the dust and dirt, there was the scratching, 
" Salisbury, 1867, " blurred by time, but clearly 
discernible. 

So Jesus Christ, passing through Jericho, 



Conversion of a Tax-collector. 209 



seeking after lost men, found Zaccheus — a man 
covered by the dust and dirt of selfishness and 
sin, thought to be a common and worthless fel- 
low, with little or none of the sweet music of 
humanity in him; but Jesus, the great expert in 
manhood, brushed off the dust and found, written 
deep and imperishably on his soul, the inscription 
which proved him to be the son of God. "And 
Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come 
to this house, forasmuch as he is also a son of 
Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek 
and to save that which was lost." 



XIV. 



THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE SOUL. 

"What doest thou here, Elijah?" — i Kings xix, 13. 
"^HERE are four pictures in the Bible drawn 



1 from the life of Elijah, all of which are of 
striking interest. He comes before us first like a 
flash of lightning in the presence of the wicked, 
idolatrous king Ahab. We know nothing what- 
ever of his boyhood or youth. The very first 
glimpse we get of him he is a full-grown man, 
bareheaded, barefooted, long hair falling over 
his shoulders, and dressed in sheepskins pinned 
about him by thorns from some desert bramble. 

He is a man of tremendous strength, whose 
muscles have been turned into cords of steel by 
severe exposure and exertion in the desert. He 
stands suddenly before the wicked king who 
had built the temple of Baal, and had intro- 
duced the Egyptian ox-worship. Standing there 
alone, he proclaims himself as the unswerving 
servant of Jehovah, whom he is not ashamed to 
reverence as the God of Israel in opposition to 
all idols. Looking the king straight in the eye, 




210 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 211 

he declares: "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, 
before whom I stand, there shall be no dew 
these years but according to my word." And 
then he is gone like a flash, leaving the king to 
wonder if he has not seen a ghost or had a bad 
dream. 

The last one of these pictures is very differ- 
ent, but still more unique. Two men, Elijah 
and Elisha, are walking along the road beyond 
Jordan, when suddenly there appeared a chariot 
of fire and horses of fire, and Elijah went up by 
a whirlwind into heaven. The great French art- 
ist Gustave Dore, found one of his masterpieces 
in this scene. He has, with all the power of his 
genius, represented the sweeping clouds, the 
winged horses, the prophet with outstretched 
hand, and Elisha falling in amazement at the 
splendid spectacle. Thus it was that this heroic 
man disappeared from the earth. These pic- 
tures show the beginning and the end of his 
earthly career. It begins in self-sacrificing loy- 
alty to God ; it ends in deathless triumph. 

Midway between these two pictures are two 
others, that stand in strong contrast with each 
other. One day we see him on Mount Carmel, 
facing the priests of Baal, bravely staking rep- 
utation, liberty, and life on his faith in God, and 



212 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



we witness his complete and perfect triumph; 
but, to our astonisment, the next day reveals him 
fleeing away into the desert before the threaten- 
ings of the wicked Jezebel. He shrinks away 
into the darkness, hiding under a juniper-tree, 
praying that he might die, crying out in his de- 
spair: "It is enough now, O Lord; take away my 
life, for I am not better than my fathers." 

There are some interesting features of this 
latter picture worthy of our study, as well as 
some practical applications of this question of 
the Almighty directed to Elijah, that it ought to 
be helpful for each of us to make personally to 
our own consciences. 

One of the most interesting features of this 
case is the sudden cowardice of this so recently 
brave man. While Elijah was doing his duty 
he was afaid of nothing that could come against 
him; he risked everything on his faith in God. 
But when this sudden revulsion of doubt came 
over him in a time when his hands were idle, he 
ran before his enemy into the desert like any 
ordinary coward. It is faith that makes men 
truly brave and heroic. 

While we have had many insane and diabol- 
ical deeds committed by anarchists, we have also 
had many contemptible exhibitions of cowardice 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 213 

on the part of these would-be reformers who 
make a jest of faith in God and religion. I re- 
member, a few years ago, when Herr Most was 
attracting a good deal of attention, and came 
into the public arena like an untamed human 
tiger. He raved and howled, and was in favor of 
bombs, dynamite, and Winchester rifles, and a 
general slaughter of all men who did not drink 
as much whisky and swear as vulgarly as he 
did. He was fierce and awful, like the fabled 
ass in the lion's skin. His crimes at last started 
the police after him, when he — armed heavily 
with rifle, pistol, and knife, when the policeman 
got near enough to be heard — threw away his ar- 
mament, and, though big and fat and lazy, he 
crept under a bed, and lay there in terror until 
pulled out by the heels, with his eyes rolling in 
craven fright, shaking and perspiring and almost 
speechless. Harpers Weekly contained a pic- 
ture of the scene at the time, entitled "The An- 
archist Drill." In the picture a fierce and raving 
hero was giving the word of command w T hich 
was: "Attention, Anarchists! Double quick! 
Under the bed! March!" 

The fact is, that character is always necessary 
to true courage. Faith in God, reliance on his 
sympathy and love for men, and a firm assurance 



214 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



of the everlasting life after death, — these are the 
roots of the highest courage. 

Another interesting feature of this scene is 
God's treatment of Elijah. Notice the gentle- 
ness of it. There he lies under the desert-bush, 
tired, exhausted, disconsolate, despairing; asking 
God to let him die — the coward's thought al- 
ways. Certainly he is to be blamed for fleeing 
from his duty, and yet it is a very human 
picture. Who of us have not seen the day 
when we could draw near him, and wrap our 
own head in his mantle? But God treats him 
just as a mother treats her child who is peevish 
because utterly tired out. God takes him in his 
arms and says: "You are tired, Elijah. You 
haven't eaten anything for two days, and been 
wrought up to the highest pitch all this time. 
Come, eat, and take a good long sleep, and to- 
morrow you will be better." And after the 
prophet had had rest and sleep and food, and a 
long walk in the desert to insure digestion, the 
Lord calmed his stormy mind by the healing 
influences of nature. He commanded the hurri- 
cane to sweep the skies, and the earthquake to 
shake the ground; he lighted up the heavens 
till they were all ablaze with the glory of the 
lightning. All this expressed Elijah's feelings. 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 215 

His spirit rose with the spirit of the storm. 
Stern, wild defiance, strange joy — all by turns 
were imaged there. But as yet Elijah did not 
recognize God in this; " God was not in the 
wind, nor in the fire, nor in the earthquake." 
But after awhile came a calmer hour. He felt 
tender sensations in his bosom, his heart opened 
to gentler influences, until at last, out of the 
manifold voices of nature, there seemed to speak, 
not the stormy passions of man, but "the still 
small voice" of the harmony of the peace of 
God. 

Frederick W. Robertson, the great Scotch 
preacher, says that " there are some spirits which 
must go through a discipline analogous to that 
sustained by Elijah. The storm-struggle must 
precede the still small voice. There are minds 
which are convulsed with doubt before they re- 
pose in faith. There are hearts which must be 
broken with disappointment before they can rise 
and hope. There are dispositions, like Job's, 
which must have all things taken from them be- 
fore they can find all things in God. Blessed is 
the man who, when the tempest has spent its 
fury, recognizes his Father's voice in its under- 
tone, and bares his head and bows his knee as 
Elijah did." 



216 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

After God had compelled Elijah's recognition 
by his providence, he came to him, and said — 
what do you think he said? "You cowardly de- 
serter? You ungrateful and rebellious wretch?" 
No; but this: "What doest thou here, Elijah?" 
And even this was in "a still small voice." It 
is thus God's gentleness makes men great. 
Now, this watchful, tender, but heart-searching 
question ought to come to each one of us to- 
night, as we examine seriously into the where- 
abouts of our souls. 

Suppose we apply this question to our 
troubles. Elijah had gotten into trouble, and 
God asked him: "What doest thou here, Eli- 
jah?" So to an}' that are in trouble to-night, 
let the inquiry come. Let us ask ourselves the 
question: "How 7 did we come into these diffi- 
culties ? Did we come into them in the path- 
way of duty, or did we bring them upon our- 
selves by our own folly and sin?" If our troubles 
came upon us in doing duty, then our consciences 
are clear, and we are comforted with the certainty 
of God's care. And, indeed, such troubles only 
sweeten our lives, and make them more beautiful 
in every way. 

Many people are like evening primroses. I 
remember being invited by a friend to come, one 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 217 

evening at sunset, to watch the opening of a 
beautiful collection of evening primroses. They 
were common-looking, uncomely stocks, and the 
buds were tightly wrapped so long as the sun 
shone, and gave no promise of the coming 
beauty; but the moment the sun disappeared, 
and the gloom of the coming night was threat- 
ened in the darkening twilight, they suddenly 
blossomed in beauty and fragrance, and crowned 
the homely stocks with a golden glory. So there 
are many men and women whose lives are hard 
and selfish and common and homely, until their 
sun of prosperity sets, and the threatening gloom 
of sorrow overshadows them, when, under that 
touch of trouble, a hidden germ blossoms in 
beauty and sweetness of spirit that crowns the 
whole stock of their lives with goodness and 
glory. 

But how many of life's troubles come in the 
wake of our own disobedience to God ! Perhaps 
no parent ever has sorer trouble than over the 
wickedness of a wayward child ; and it often hap- 
pens that parents wonder that God should have 
dealt so with them, when the child is simply 
the fruit of their own careless course of conduct 
The old fable is not without its lesson, even in 
the present enlightened age: "How very badly 

1 5 



218 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



my poor children are walking!" said a crab, in 
great distress of mind. "I scold and reason and 
talk, yet I notice nothing but crookedness." 
"Ah! my friend," said a listener, "if you so 
earnestly wished your children to walk straight, 
why have you always walked crookedly your- 
self?" 

The power of example is stronger than any 
other human influence. Every one of us, who 
are the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, needs 
to lay this to heart. The hypocrites, who go 
into the Church with the purpose to commit 
sins under the garb of righteousness, I am con- 
vinced, are comparatively few. It is the care- 
lessness of Church members, the thoughtless, 
heedless folly, that often make their influence 
and example a stumbling-block in the way of 
others. I think many could well pray the prayer 
of the court jester. Some poet tells that once, 
when 

"The royal feast was done, the king 

Sought some new sport to banish care, 
And to his jester cried: 'Sir Fool, 

Kneel down, and make for us a prayer!' 

The Jester doffed his cap and bells, 
And stood the mocking court before. 

They could not see the bitter smile 
Behind the painted grin he wore. 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 219 



He bowed his head, and bent his knee 
Upon the monarch's silken stool; 

His pleading voice arose : 'O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

No pity, Lord, could change the heart 
From red with wrong to white as wool : 

The rod must heal the sin ; but, Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

'T is not by guilt the onward sweep 
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay ; 

'T is by our folly that so long 
We hold the earth from heaven away. 

These clumsy feet, still in the mire, 
Go crushing blossoms without end ; 

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
Among the heart-strings of a friend. 

The ill-timed truth w T e might have kept — 
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung? 

The word we had not sense to say — 
Who knows how gladly it had rung ? 

Our faults no tenderness should ask ; 

The chastening stripe must cleanse them all; 
But for our blunders — O, in shame, 

Before the eyes of Heaven, we fall. 

Earth bears no balsams for mistakes : 

Men crown the knave, and scourge the too. 

That does their will ; but thou, O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool !' 

The room was hushed ; in silence rose 
The king, and sought his gardens cool ; 

And walked apart, and murmured low, 
' Be^merciful to me, a fool !' " 



220 Heavenly Trade-winds, 

Apply this question to your doubts, to your 
lack of ready acceptance of God's appeal to your 
soul. Why are you here in doubt of God's 
Word — you who were reared in a land full of 
evidence of the divine influence of the Bible on 
every hand? You, to whom the precious name 
of Jesus was a cradle-song, what doest thou 
here? Ask if it is not your own fault. 

Almost any one can throw away any helpful 
and ennobling faith by treasuring up and nurs- 
ing the doubts that the devil suggests to the 
mind. But why should you nurse them up any 
more than you would, pet and coddle a thief 
who came to rob you? A noted Frenchman — 
Amiel — who died a few years ago, left a private 
journal, which has been published and quite 
widely read. It is very sad reading, indeed. 
His life is the history of others, repeated over 
and over again. His doubts first led him to re- 
ject the gospel; then, divine providence was de- 
nied; and, finally, a personal God and the im- 
mortality of the soul were cast overboard, to 
make his craft float more sprightly. But he 
sailed into the harbor of death with his own 
soul lost. 

Among his last words were these: " Specter 
oi my own conscience, ghost of my own tor- 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 221 

ment, image of the ceaseless struggle of the 
soul which has not yet found its true aliment, 
its peace, its faith, — art thou not the typical 
example of a life which feeds upon itself, be- 
cause it has not found its God, and which, in 
its wandering flights across the worlds, carries 
within it, like a comet, an inextinguishable 
flame of desire, and the agony of incurable dis- 
illusion?" 

If there be any here who lack enjoyment and 
interest in religion, you ought to put this ques- 
tion earnestly to yourself. You excuse yourself, 
it may be, by saying: "I have no desire, no long- 
ing in that direction. " Now, if that' is true, 
God comes to you as solemnly as he came to 
Elijah at the mouth of the old desert cave, and 
says: " What doest thou here, without a zest for 
spiritual things ?" God made you to find your 
highest possible delights in spiritual friendship 
and communion. Both your body and mind 
were given as adjuncts to your soul. Why is it 
that you have no spiritual appetite? 

I once read a pathetic story of a lady of one 
of our Northern cities, who possessed rare re- 
finement and great wealth, but had lost her 
health. In this sad condition she was advised 
by her physician to visit one of the tropical 



222 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



islands, in search of that which was of more 
value to her than all earthly possessions. After 
she had lived there for some time, she wrote back 
to her friends, saying: "This is a most lovely 
place. The climate is perfect, friends are very 
attentive to me, and the finest food and tropical 
fruits are furnished at my command; but if I 
only had an appetite !" She had the offer of 
all that heart could wish, but lacked an appe- 
tite, and died in a few months. If she could 
only have relished her food, she would have 
lived. 

All about us are men and women who are 
spiritually starving to death- — more pitiable 
cases of starvation than pauper in attic ever 
saw — not a starved body, but a famished soul. 
The spiritual appetite has been frittered away. 
Everything else has been fed. The body, the 
dear, tender body, that shall be fed itself to 
worms in a few years, has been nursed and cod- 
dled, and kept fat and sleek; but the soul, that 
can never die, has been left to go hungry, or to 
feed on the morbid vaporings of the world. 
You can not afford to throw away your appetite 
for spiritual things. If you have been doing so, 
I pray you cease now. Cultivate, by God's 
grace, the desire for those things that ally you 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 223 

to the royal line of character and destiny both 
on earth and in heaven. 

How wise it would be if some who hear me 
to-night would apply this question to the asso- 
ciations which you are forming! How often 
men say to me, when I plead with them to be- 
come Christians: "I could not live a Christian 
life surrounded by the associations which are 
about me!" What doest thou here in such as- 
sociations? Honestly and frankly, though it 
may seem almost rude — let my earnestness to 
save your soul be my excuse — what business 
have you to make such associations? Xo man 
can afford to be careless about the associations 
he makes or the habits he forms. 

There is a wonderful tree in the southwestern 
tropics called the man-eating tree. It grows in 
the South Pacific islands; but the name is a 
slander. Its reputation has been supplied by 
strange stories, which have been circulated; yet, 
as in the case of most evil rumors, some truth 
has started the gossip. The tree has long 
branches. From these it throws out tendrils 
that reach to the ground. The tendrils twine 
around any object they touch. Then, after a 
time, contract, holding in their clasp whatsoever 
they have clutched, and suspend their prey in 



224 



He ave xl y Trade -winds. 



the air. Of course, men and animals are not 
thus clutched; for it takes days and weeks to 
do the grasping. But bones and sticks are lifted 
up, and held in mid-air; hence the murderous 
name. Youth is like that wonderful tree. The 
mind has its beautiful branches, its noble facul- 
ties, and each branch throws out its long ten- 
drils, grasping after objects, and twining around 
habits and associations. After awhile they con- 
tract, and these habits and associations are sus- 
pended before the eyes of men and God. Many 
a man in later life has said, over and over 
again, in the language of the poet, u Had I but 
known," I would have lived so differently in 
my youth. 

"Had I but known that nothing is undone 
From rising until rising of the sun, 

That full-fledged words fly off beyond our reach, 
That not a deed brought forth to life dies ever, — 

I would have measured out and weighed my speech ; 
To bear good deeds had been my sole endeavor, 
Had I but known ! 

Had I but known how swiftly speed away 
The living hours that make the living day ; 

That 'tis above delay's so dangerous slough 
Is hung the luring wisp-light of to-morrow, — 

I would c have seized Time's evanescent Xow; 
I would be spared this unavailing sorrow, 
Had I but known ! 



The Whereabouts of the Soul. 225 



Had I but known to dread the dreadful fire 
That lay in ambush at my heart's desire. 

Where from it sprang and smote my naked hand, 
And left a mark forever to remain, 

I would not bear the fire's ignoble brand ; 
I would have weighed the pleasure with the pain, 
Had I but known ! 

Had I but known we never could repeat 

Life's springtime freshness or its summer's heat, 

Xor gather second harvests from life's field, 
Xor aged winter change to youthful spring, — 

To me life's flowers their honey all would yield; 
I would not feel one wasted moment's sting, 
Had I but known?" 

It is that unavailing sorrow I would save 
you, if I could. If to-night your heart is not 
right with God, I pray you, here and now, open 
your heart, that the Savior may come in, and 
drive out even-thing that is impure and unclean. 



A HEAVENLY STAIRWAY. 



" Whereby are given unto ns exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises ; that by these ye might be partakers of the 
divine nature." — i PETER i, 4. 

r I ^HE message of the opening verses of this 



A chapter is that, in sin, man walks upon a 
low plane, treading in the filth and corruption 
"that is in the world through lust;" but that 
God through his great love in Jesus Christ has 
prepared a way of escape, a divine stairway, 
whereby, through certain great promises made 
by reason of the atonement of Jesus Christ, a 
sinner may climb out from the low marshes of 
mire and clay up on to the high table-lands of 
virtue and knowledge and faith and patience and 
brotherly kindness and love. In that lofty alti- 
tude we breathe the atmosphere of heaven, and 
are partakers of the divine nature. 

Let us study for a little time some of the 
rounds in this ladder, or some of the stones in 
this stairway, by which one may climb into fel- 
lowship and association with God; and I think 
we will all agree that the first stone in that stair- 




226 



A Heavenly Stairway. 



227 



way is the great promise of freedom from the 
bondage of sin. Paul surely thought so; for 
when writing to Timothy, giving for his benefit 
some of his own reminiscences, he begins by 
saying: u This is a faithful saying, and worthy 
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." 

Sin is aptly described in the Scriptures as a 
slavery. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, de- 
clares that we are to escape from the bitter bond- 
age of sin by becoming the free disciples and 
servants of Jesus Christ. "Know ye not," says 
he, " that to whom ye yield yourselves as servants 
to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey, 
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto 
righteousness ?" And then, again congratulating 
them on their escape, he says: " Being then 
made free from sin, ye became the servants of 
righteousness. " 

There is no such thing as absolute freedom 
among intelligent beings. The only way that 
we can escape from the low bondage of the flesh 
is by rising up into the lofty service of the spirit. 
Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, says: 
"He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, 
is the Lord's freeman ; likewise, also, he that is 
called being free, is Christ's servant." We have 



228 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



had a great deal of talk in our time about free 
thinking and free living. A certain skeptical 
writer said, awhile ago, that when she got rid of 
Christianity she felt she emerged on "the broad, 
breezy common of nature." But the people who 
escape from fields and fenced pastures and towns 
and cities, and emerge to live on the "breezy 
commons," are never the people who advance 
civilization. Who are the people who defy the 
limitation of fences and houses for the open com- 
mon? Are they not the untaught, superstitious 
Indians, the wandering Gypsies, and the idle 
tramps? The best things do not grow on the 
" breezy commons." Crab-apples grow there, 
now and then some wild grapes, and wild goose- 
berries ; but what are these compared to the corn- 
fields, the meadows, and the rich gardens of 
civilization ? 

Surely the history of the last few hundred 
years shows us that the people who try to es- 
cape the limitations of Christianity, and live on 
" breezy commons," find license instead of free- 
dom, and sour wild-fruit in place of the rich 
orchards of the gospel. But there is a noble 
proclamation of liberty in the gospel of Christ: 
"If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye 
shall be free indeed." Christ proposes to make 



A Heavenly Stairway. 229 



us free from the bondage of sin, not by dragging 
us out of it by some force greater than our own 
while we long to stay in the enjoyment of its 
vulgarity, but by cleansing our hearts from their 
foul taint, and arousing within us a love for bet- 
ter things. 

When a great steamer strikes on a sunken 
rock at the mouth of the harbor at low tide, it 
would be worse than useless to drag her off the 
rock, doing the ship perhaps irreparable damage ; 
but, instead, the captain waits, hoping that when 
high tide comes she may be lifted high enough 
to float of her own accord into the deep waters 
of safety. 

So it would be idle even for Omnipotence to 
undertake to drag a human soul, against its own 
love and desire, off of the shoals of sin where it 
has grounded. But if the God who brings in 
the tide by a magnetic influence exerted by the 
heavens can also bring to bear upon the poor 
sinning soul the magnetism of divine love, the 
wrecked human bark may be brought to sail 
again. A ship that is aground can not sail un- 
less it be lifted up, and there is no hope for a 
soul aground unless it, too, be lifted up. The 
psalmist says: "I will run in the way of thy 
commandments, when thou hast enlarged my 



230 Heavenly Trade-winds, 



heart. " If I speak to any here to-night who feel 
that they are aground, and that the soul cleaves 
to the mud, allow me to point you to Him who 
came to rescue souls in just such danger; not 
by any temporary expedient, but by bringing 
them out of the dominion of sin under the reign 
of righteousness and truth. 

The soul that, by repentance toward God and 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, turns toward the 
new life, puts off "the old man with his deeds, " 
and becomes a partaker of the divine nature, so 
that the things that once were loved, now are 
hated, and those that once were hated and 
dreaded are now admired and loved. Upon 
every side of us are witnesses of the power of 
Jesus Christ to work this transformation. Un- 
der this heavenly influence, drunkards become 
sober, lustful natures are made pure, liars come 
to love the truth, dishonest men become reliable, 
misers melt into generosity, selfish men blossom 
into self-denying deeds, men given to anger and 
revenge grow to be tender and gentle as a child. 

In the light of all this testimony, shall we not 
obey the injunction of Paul in his letter to the 
Hebrews? " Wherefore, seeing we also are com- 
passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, 
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which 



A Heavenly Stairway. 231 

doth so easily beset us, and let us run with pa- 
tience the race that is set before us, looking unto 
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith ; who 
for the joy that was set before him endured the 
cross, despising the shame, and is set down at 
the right hand of the throne of God." 

Again we enter into the divine nature through 
the great promises that are made to us concern- 
ing the reliability of our Christian faith. All 
earthly supports for our faith are as changeable 
as the winds. They are like the yielding sand. 
Jesus says himself that those who trust in 
worldly supports are like the foolish man who 
built his house upon the sand, which, when the 
great stress of the storm came, was overthrown 
and destroyed. But the Christian he likens to 
the wise man, which built his house upon a rock; 
"and the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew and beat upon . that house, 
and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock." 

How splendidly Christ illustrated these great 
promises in his own experience in temptation! 
It could not have been called temptation truth- 
fully, unless in some great sense he was tempted. 
It was a strain in some way upon his moral na- 
ture ; and yet in the wilderness, from the moun- 
tain top, and from the pinnacle of the temple, as 



232 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

well as in his daily contact with the people, un- 
der the severest strain of temptation, how strong 
and noble his life shone out! He was tempted 
in all points like as we are, "yet without sin." 
Under every possible strain he lived a genuine, 
reliable life. This was possible, we must all 
agree, because of the divine nature which was in 
him. And so, if we, too, shall become partakers 
of the divine nature, we also shall be trust- 
worthy under temptation. We shall still be 
tempted, and shall feel the strain of it, but the 
buoyancy of the divine nature shall sustain us. 

One of the editors of the New York Inde- 
pendent recently had a strong article entitled 
"The Strain of Brooklyn Bridge," in which he 
remarks, if you walk across Brooklyn bridge 
you will notice that in the middle the four great 
cables hang so low that you can touch them. 
A full-grown man can put his arms around one 
of the great cables so that his fingers will meet 
about it. It is made of thousands of steel wires 
twisted in strands and cords and ropes, all gath- 
ered in one cable of prodigious strength. On 
these four cables rest with ease the two car- 
riage-ways, the two railways, and the wide walk 
for passengers. All these hang dependent from 
these four cables so firmly that one seems to be 



A Heavenly Stairway. 



233 



walking on solid earth ; for so firm, so solid is the 
structure, and so mightily is it held by these 
four steel cables, that there is no sense of weak- 
ness, no swaying of the great bridge by the 
fiercest winds, or by anything that passes over it. 

As you stand in the exact middle of the 
bridge, you w T ill observe where the compensation 
is made for the expansion and contraction by 
heat and cold. The bridge, resting on the four 
cables, is divided into two parts in the middle, 
and one end is arranged to slide over the other. 
You can put your hand on the railing, and meas- 
ure, by the rubbing of the parts, how far they 
have pulled back in winter or have overlapped 
in summer. And, indeed, the bridge shows this 
same sensitiveness to the heat of every day. 

But not only does the bridge feel heat and 

cold ; it is also sensitive to the weights that pass 

over it. If you stand and watch, you will notice 

that foot-passengers seem to have no effect on it. 

Even when a heavily-loaded team passes by, 

there is no observable movement; the bridge 

does not seem to have noticed it at all. But if 

you watch when a train of cars is crossing the 

bridge, you will see the ends of the two parts of 

the bridge begin to move apart and separate for 

about an inch ; then, as the train passes on, they 

16 



234 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



come together again, and in a moment they are 
in their normal position. The bridge will notice 
that the train is passing; but it did not break* 
neither did it feel any painful strain. 

It is surely a great illustration for our study. 
There are bridges that would be broken under 
the weight of a single traveler, and so there are 
men who fall under the pressure of a single 
temptation. But there are firm, assured Chris- 
tians, whose great cables hold so fast at one end 
to the divine command, and at the other to the 
divine promise, that no temptation can break 
them down — men and women who belong to 
that class described by the apostle, who can not 
sin because they are born of God and abide 
in him. Let no one think it is impossible for 
him to reach this reliability of character. God 
has made no one to be a spiritual weakling, in- 
capable of lofty moral development. If we are 
true to the light he gives us, and open our hearts 
to receive him, he will abide in us and we in 
him. Our weakness will be supported by his 
strength, we shall partake of his reliability of na- 
ture, and we shall come to know what Paul 
meant when he said, "When I am weak, then 
am I strong." 

We enter also into the divine nature through 



A Heavenly Stairway. , 235 

the great promises which are given to us of the 
witness of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, testify- 
ing to God's love and forgiveness. How blessed 
are some of these promises! We are assured 
that God is more willing to give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him than earthly parents are to 
give good gifts unto their children. When God 
dwells in the heart, it can not but be that that 
heart shall be bright and full of cheer; for "God 
is light, and in him there is no darkness at all." 
If he dwells in the heart, love and good-will 
must prevail; for "God is love." The blues 
must be dissipated, morbid depression of spirits 
be overcome, and the soul attuned to song and 
praise, if the witness of God's Spirit bears cheer- 
ful and glad assurance of our sonship to God. 
The presence of God in the heart is like the 
presence of the sunshine on the earth. 

A distinguished scientific writer, Professor 
Percy Frankland, has an article in a recent num- 
ber of the Nineteenth Century, in which he calls 
attention in an interesting way to the modern 
scientific discovery of the cleansing and disin- 
fectant properties of sunshine. The common 
notion that the rays of the sun promote the mul- 
tiplication of bacteria, and consequently fermen- 
tation, putrefaction, and decomposition, is, it ap- 



236 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

pears, incorrect. About sixteen years ago two 
Englishmen, by the names of Downs and Blunt, 
established the fact that if certain liquids capa- 
ble of undergoing putrefaction are exposed to 
the direct rays of the sun, they remain perfectly 
sweet, while exactly similar liquids kept in the 
dark become tainted and exhibit innumerable 
bacteria under the microscope. 

It has been further ascertained that not only 
does sunshine check the growth of these minute 
organisms, but that it has the same effect upon 
the microbes which are hostile to human life. 
The bacilli of Asiatic cholera, for instance, are 
killed after a few hours' exposure to sunlight, 
and other deadly organisms which are not de- 
stroyed by exposure to the solar rays are so pro- 
foundly modified in character that the most im- 
portant changes are noticed in their subsequent 
behavior. 

What a splendid analogy there is between 
the facts revealed in this scientific discovery 
and the phenomena of the Holy Spirit in his ac- 
tion upon a human soul! Solomon declared 
that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine ; 
and there is no heart so truly merry, nor so per- 
manently so, as the one that is at peace with 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul and 



A Heavenly Stairway. 



237 



Silas, bruised and bloody, thrown into the dun- 
geon, sing songs of praise and triumph at mid- 
night. Cheerfulness and the atmosphere of 
hope and love, such as the genuine Christian 
enjoys, do more than anything else to prevent 
the fermentations and putrefactions of the inner 
life. Even Stephen's enemies had to admit that 
his face was like that of an angel, and Moses, 
though he wist not that his face shone at all, 
when he came down from his fellowship with 
God, dazzled the eyes of the Hebrews to behold 
him beyond their power to endure. 

The Holy Spirit has not lost its power to 
transform the human countenance. It can take 
out of it the record of fretfulness and peevish- 
ness, and jealousy and hate, and write on it the 
new name of gentleness and love. And what a 
benediction there is in a face full of the divine 
cheer ! May God give such a face to every one 
of us by bringing us into the constant abiding 
fellowship with himself! 

And then we are brought to be partakers of 
the divine nature through the great promise of 
partnership with Christ in the world's salvation. 
Paul's heart bounds within him when he ex- 
claims: "We are workers together with God." 
And one of the most comforting things Christ 



238 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

could have said to the sad and lonely disciples 
was: u Ye are my witnesses.'' And in his last 
great command to them he assured them of this 
blessed fellowship in the work of saving the lost 
when he said: u Go ye therefore, and teach all 
nations, . . . teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 

There is no way by which we can enter into 
perfect fellowship with Christ so well as by 
doing the work of love which he has upon his 
hands and heart among men. And when we 
remember how great is his love for us, how 
much he suffered in our behalf, how little seems 
what we have done for him, and how slight our 
own evidence of devotion in seeking after the lost. 

Dr. Dio Lewis, in his autobiography, tells a 
pathetic little story of a shepherd dog which 
came under his observation during his travels in 
the West. It was out on a frontier ranch, and 
the owner was showing him a shepherd dog 
which he said he would not sell for five hundred 
dollars. She had at that time four young 
puppies, and while Dr. Lewis and the rancher 
were admiring the little mother and her babies, 
one of the herders came in to say that there 
were more than twenty sheep missing. 



A Heavenly Stairway. 



239 



Two dogs, both larger than the little mother, 
were standing about, but the herder said neither 
Tom nor Dick would find them. Flora must 
go. It was urged by the herder that her foot 
was sore, that she had been hard at work all day, 
was nearly worn out, and must give her puppies 
their supper, but the master insisted that she 
must go. 

The sun was setting, and there was no time 
to lose. Flora was called and told to hunt for 
the lost sheep. While the master pointed to the 
great forest through the edge of which they had 
just passed, she raised her head, but seemed 
very loath to leave her babies. The master 
called sharply to her. She looked tired and low- 
spirited, but patiently and faithfully trotted off 
toward the forest. 

"That is too bad," said Dr. Lewis. 

"O, she'll be right back," was the master's 
answer. 

The next morning he went over to learn 
whether Flora had found the strays; but she had 
been out all night, and had not yet come in; but 
while they were speaking the sheep returned, 
driven by the little dog, who was so worn and 
tired with her night's work that she could 
scarcely wag her tail and give one love-kiss to 



240 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



her master's hand before she dropped down 
asleep beside her babies. 

Ah! if a dog can do that out of devotion to 
her master, what ought not you and I to do for 
Jesus Christ and his lost brothers and sisters? 
Think of it — the vast gloomy forest, the little 
creature with the sore foot, and heart crying for 
her babies, limping and creeping about in the 
rugged canon, all through the long dark hours, 
finding and gathering in the lost sheep ! 

I repeat it, if a dog could do that, strength- 
ened by the little flickering flame of love which 
it could understand, what can we do, cheered 
and sustained by the Holy Spirit, nerved by 
yoke fellowship with Jesus Christ, and lured 
onward by hopes of everlasting glory? Rather 
what can we not do, to bring back the lost to 
the feet of our loving Master? 



XVI. 



A CONSECRATED PERSONALITY. 



" And he went np and lay upon the child, and put his 
mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his 
hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the 
child; and the flesh of the child waxed warm." — 2 Kings 
iv, 34. 

T^HIS scene is the climax of a very graphic 



A and interesting story, which most of you re- 
call. A woman known as the Shunammite — a 
woman of wealth and position — who had been 
very kind to the prophet, and in whose house he 
had spent many a restful hour, had come to him 
in great distress. Her only child, a boy, had 
been smitten with sunstroke while out in the 
fields with his father's harvesters. They had 
brought him to the house to his mother, and after 
moaning a few hours in her arms he died. 

In her great sorrow she took him up into the 
prophet's chamber, and laying him on the bed 
which she had with her own hands prepared for 
her guest as the man of God, she mounted her 
beast, and hurried away to find Elisha. She 
found the prophet at Mount Carmel, a spot for- 
ever made sacred by the triumph of Elijah over 




242 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



the prophets of Baal, and surely a place to in- 
spire confidence in the power of God to do won- 
drous things. As soon as her story was told to 
Elisha, he said to Gehazi: u Gird up thy loins, 
and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy 
way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and 
if any salute thee, answer him not again: and 
lay my staff upon the face of the child." But 
the mother of the child refused to be put off with 
Gehazi, and said: "As the Lord liveth, and as 
thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee/' Which 
was a very persistent way of letting Elisha know 
that no one would answer in his stead, and so he 
arose and followed her. 

As they went, Gehazi, who had gone on ahead 
of them, came, meeting them, and declared that 
he had laid the staff upon the face of the child 
without an}' effect. So Elisha went up to the 
room himself, and, after earnest prayer, he pro- 
ceeded, as it is related in the text, to bring the 
dead child in personal contact with his own 
warm and living body. 

The picture is so strong and suggestive that 
there can be no doubt that it is meant to teach 
us an important lesson. 

For some reason, we know not what, Elisha 
proposed to bring this child back to life by 



A Consecrated Personality. 243 

proxy. His servant and his staff he gladly sent 
at the call of his friend; bnt God refused to rec- 
ognize either the servant or the staff, and did not 
make them the channel of communication by 
which life might be imparted to the dead boy; 
and the prophet himself was compelled to bring 
the whole power of his own personality to bear. 
We have here a very vivid illustration of the 
power of a consecrated personality. 

I do not for a moment discount in any way 
the miraculous element of the story; but, after 
all, it was only because Elisha was such a man 
as he was that it was possible for God to work 
through him in bringing life to the dead. Just 
as a magnet is the center of great attractive 
forces with which it is charged, so Elisha w r as 
charged, if I may so speak, with spiritual force. 
Once, when the crowd thronged about Jesus 
Christ, and a poor woman, who had had an issue 
of blood for twelve years, pressed through the 
crowd behind him, and touched the hem of his 
garment, Jesus said that he perceived that virtue 
had gone out of him. Now what was possible in 
the case of Jesus and of Elisha must, in some 
great sense, be true of all of us, or may be true 
of all of us. It is very significant that in the 
days of the prophets, as well as in the days of the 



244 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



Son of man, works of helpfulness were almost 
universally wrought through the medium of per- 
sonal contact. Christ took his spittle and mixed 
it with clay, and put his fingers on the poor blind 
man's eyes. Peter, at the Beautiful Gate, took 
the lame beggar by the hand and lifted him up. 
When a young man, who had fallen asleep under 
Paul's long sermon, fell out of the window, and 
was picked up dead, Paul took him in his arms 
and restored him. And so Elisha must stretch 
his warm-blooded, vigorous body over that of the 
death-stricken child, and mouth to mouth and 
eye to eye and pulse to pulse, giving self for self, 
he becomes the channel of life from God. 

Surely here is a lesson for us in all our at- 
tempts to bring men spiritual life. When Paul 
was smitten with blindness on his way to Da- 
mascus by that wonderful vision which was the 
beginning of his conversion, while he yet groped 
in darkness and knew not which way to go, they 
led him by the hand and brought him to Da- 
mascus; and when the good man Ananias, 
obeying the leadings of the Spirit, entered the 
house where he was, he put his hands on him, 
and thus brought to him his sight. 

Nothing can take the place of this hand-to- 
hand contact. There is a legend of an English 



A Consecrated Personality. 245 



monk, who died at the monastery of Arenberg, 
where he had copied and illuminated many 
books, hoping to be rewarded in heaven. Long 
after his death his tomb was opened, and noth- 
ing could be seen of his remains but the right 
hand, with which he had done his pious work, 
and which had been marvelously preserved from 
decay. S. T. Wallace makes the legend the basis 
of a poem entitled "The Blessed Hand," in 
which he says: 

"They laid him where a window's blaze 

Flashed o'er the graven stone, 
And seemed to touch his simple name 

With pencil like his own ; 
And there he slept, and one by one, 

His brothers died the while, 
And trooping years went by, and trod 

His name from off the aisle. 

And lifting up the pavement then, 

An abbot's couch to spread, 
They let the jeweled sunlight in 

Where once lay Anselm's head. 
No crumbling bone was there, no trace 

Of human dust that told; 
But, all alone, a warm right hand 

I^ay fresh upon the mold. 

It was not stiff, as dead men's are, 

But with a tender clasp 
It seemed to hold an unseen hand 

Within its living grasp ; 



246 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



And ere the trembling monks could turn 

To hide their dazzled eves, 
It rose as with the sound of wings 

Right up into the skies. 

O loving, open hands that give! 

Soft hands the tear that dry! 
O patient hands that toil to bless ! 

How can ye ever die ? 
Ten thousand vows from yearning hearts 

To heaven's own gates shall soar, 
And bear you up, as Anselm's hand 

Those unseen angels bore." 

We have suggested in our study this morning 
that no gift of our possessions, however generous, 
can take the place of the consecration of our- 
selves. Paul, in one of his letters to the Corinth- 
ians, says, about the Christians of Macedonia, 
that they first "gave their own selves to the 
Lord;" and he makes the supreme value of such 
a gift very clear in the famous thirteenth chapter 
of First Corinthians, wdien he declares that, 
though he should bestow all his goods to feed 
the poor, and his body to be burned, and had not 
love, which is the very essence of self-giving, it 
would profit him nothing. The richest gift we 
can give to God, or to our brothers, is ourselves. 

Many a Grand Army man, who was a prisoner 
in North Carolina during the Rebellion, remem- 
bers an old Negro woman who was known by the 



A Consecrated Personality. 247 



name of " Cheer up, honeys," and "Glory-day," 
both among the Union prisoners and the Con- 
federate conscripts. The saintly old soul, had 
nothing to give them but the sympathy and good 
cheer of her own. heart; but that happened to be 
what they lacked more than anything else; and 
every day, when prisoners were marched into the 
stockade, or conscripts were halted within her 
reach, she would hobble up to the wornout and 
discouraged men, and with sunshiny face and 
moist eyes, she would cry in the ears of all : 
" Cheer up, honeys, glory-clay is coming!" which 
was often like a cup of cold water in a dry and 
thirsty desert. How many prisoners of sorrow 
and trouble are all about us! — how many con- 
scripts of fortune drafted into a hateful service, 
who need, more than anything else, the cheer of 
kindly personal sympathy and fellowship! God 
called the rich farmer a fool who tried to feed his 
soul on what he stored away in his barns ; and do 
we not deserve the same opprobrium who try to 
make anything merely material to take the place 
of the giving of our own selves in personal con- 
tact and helpfulness in doing the work to which 
the Master calls us? 

Dr. S. C. Logan tells, in the Northwestern 
Christian Advocate, how, one blustering night 



248 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

when it was very dark and the wind was howl- 
ing, he was awakened in the middle of the night 
by a warm little hand which was gently pressed 
upon his face. He reached out in the darkness 
and found his little boy. He was standing by 
the bed, and trying to lay his head beside his 
father's on the pillow. The father said: 

"■My dear boy, what is the matter?" 

He answered in a whisper, " Nothing, papa.' 

"But what do you want?" 

"I want you," he answered, with a little sob 
that shook his body, and very soon shook the 
father's. But with the father's kind arm about 
him he soon grew quiet, and again was asked: 
"My child, are you sick?" 

"No," he said. 

"Are you hungry? Don't you want some- 
thing?" 

"No," he said, with his lips pressed to the 
father's ear, " I just want you; it is so dark." 

Brothers, there are many, many of God's chil- 
dren who are wandering in the dark, knowing 
not which way to turn, the wind of adversity 
howling about them, the darkness full of ghosts 
to their excited and frightened imagination, the 
blackness of the midnight driving to despair, 
who need above everything else that somebody 



A Consecrated Personality. 249 

who knows God, and is therefore not afraid, 
whose heart is warmed by the love of Jesus 
Christ, shall give themselves as a refuge, a hid- 
ing-place from the wind, and a covert from the 
tempest. 

I fear that many of us are like Elisha, willing 
enough to send the servant to lay the dead stick 
upon the dead body, but hesitating at the only 
gift which can really bring life to the dead, the 
gift of ourselves. Great things can only be ac- 
complished by great consecration. When Jesus 
came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, 
and found his disciples mortified and defeated, 
and the poor father who had come to them with 
his sick child, hoping against hope for his resto- 
ration from the demons that possessed him, 
Jesus, after the child had gone away recovered 
with his parent, said to the disciples, who asked 
why they could not cast him out: "This kind 
goeth not out save by fasting and prayer." That 
is, by the giving up of self. 

No man can fast by substitute, and no man 
can pray by substitute; and the two together 
represent more perfectly than anything else su- 
preme consecration. 

Dr. J. R. Miller has recently retold a beautiful 
legend of Japan, about the making of a wonder- 

17 



250 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

ful bell. The substance of the story is, that long 
ago the emperor wrote to the maker of bells, 
and commanded him to cast a bell larger and 
more beautiful than any ever made before. It 
was to be made of gold and silver and brass, 
that the tones might be so sweet and clear that, 
when hung in the palace tower, its sound might 
be heard for a hundred miles. The maker of 
bells put the gold and silver and brass into his 
great melting-pot; but the metals would not 
mingle, and the bell was a failure. i\gain and 
again he tried, but in vain. Then the emperor 
was angry, and sent word that if the bell was 
not made at the next trial the bell-maker 
must die. 

The bell-maker had a lovely daughter. She 
was greatly distressed for her father. Wrapping 
her mantle about her, she went by night to the 
oracle, and asked how she could save him. He 
told her that gold and brass would not mingle 
until the blood of a virgin was mixed with them 
in their fusion. Again the old maker of bells 
prepared to cast the bell. The daughter stood 
by, and, at the moment of casting, she threw 
herself into the midst of the molten metal. The 
bell was made, and was found to be more won- 
derful and perfect than any other ever made. It 



A Consecrated Personality. 251 



hangs in the great palace tower, and its sweet 
tones are heard for a hundred miles. The blood 
of sacrifice, mingling with the gold and silver 
and brass, gave to the bell its matchless 
sweetness. 

The old heathen legend has in it a vein of 
eternal truth. The great metals of human life 
can only be fused in blood. Great deeds can 
not be wrought second-hand, can not be wrought 
by substitutes, can not be accomplished without 
the giving up of the entire self. How many 
times the Church stumbles and staggers and 
fails, in its attempt to carry forward its ministry 
of reconciliation, because those who are charged 
with sacred responsibilities, instead of possess- 
ing and exhibiting the dauntless courage and 
the holy self-giving of Jesus Christ, appear only 
as those who act a part in mouthing ceremonies 
or in directing shrew T d and cunning worldly 
policies ! 

Dean Hole, of Rochester, England, in a vol- 
ume entitled "Memories," tells an amusing anec- 
dote of the old regime, when cannons were some- 
times removed from their places on board of a 
man-of-war for the sake of accommodation. 
They were replaced by short wooden dummies, 
which looked externally like the real thing, and 



252 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



occupied much less room. A naval officer, who 
had taken offense at something which had been 
said at a dinner-party by a clergyman who had 
just been made an honorary canon, and w 7 ho was 
somewhat autocratic, resolved to be avenged. 
He invited the whole party to inspect his ship 
next day, and when inquiry w T as made as to the 
use of one of these sham substitutes, which he 
had placed in a conspicuous position to attract 
notice, he replied, in a tone which all could hear: 
u O, that wooden thing? It is only a dummy — a 
sort of honorary cannon!'' 

Alas ! I fear that many a spiritual man-of-war 
goes into battle with so many honorary cannons 
as to be almost helpless in trying to do real exe- 
cution. If one could imagine the gun having 
human thought and emotion, what could be 
more contemptible than to be a poor wooden 
dummy, in the midst of the enginery of real life 
and execution, for defense or aggressive conflict 
on every side? But how much more contempt- 
ible to be a dummy in the great conflict which 
Jesus Christ is waging for the salvation of this 
world ! 

Vital issues are on every side of us. Living, 
burning problems, that go down to the very 
marrow of human being, are demanding solu- 



A Consecrated Personality. 



253 



tion; and, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we must 
believe and know that only as men come to love 
him, and are mastered by his Spirit, can there 
be real peace and harmony for mankind. And 
in the midst of such a conflict, when everything 
that is wicked and lustful and drunken and 
greedy and devilish is seeking to bring distrust 
on Christianity and overthrow its beneficent 
work — to be a dummy in a fight like that, to 
count for nothing, to be only a painted wooden 
thing, taking up room where others fight and 
bleed and suffer and are glorified, — ah ! it seems 
to me, that is unbearable. But there is only one 
way to escape it, and that is to throw your whole 
self into the struggle. 

The Jews who wagged their heads at Jesus 
Christ as he hung upon the cross, and sneeringly 
said, "He saved others, but himself he can not 
save," spoke more truth than they dreamed. 
One can not be a savior of others, and at the 
same time be careful of himself. 

In Ireland, recently, a quarrel had taken 
place at a fair, and a culprit was being sentenced 
for manslaughter. The doctor, however, had 
given evidence to show that the victim's skull 
was abnormally thin. The prisoner, on being 
asked if he had anything to say for himself, re- 



254 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



plied: u No, your honor; but faith, and I would 
like to ask, was that a dacent skull to go to a 
fair with?" 

A man is of no value in doing any great 
work in this world who does not so throw him- 
self into it with enthusiasm and devotion that 
hard knocks shall not daunt him, but rather in- 
spire him to do his best. As Dr. George Pente- 
cost once said: "If any one would live earnestly, 
he must stand the racket. " 

One of the last official acts of President Car- 
not, of France, w r as bestowed on an American 
girl, over in Ohio, to whom he gave the cross 
of the Legion of Honor. She is perhaps the 
youngest person in the world who wears that 
cross. It came about in this way: Last summer, 
Jennie Clark, an eleven-year-old girl, was walk- 
ing along a railroad track over which was soon 
to pass a World's Fair excursion-train. She 
saw that the trestle-work over a deep ravine 
was on fire. As quick as a flash the little girl 
snatched off her red petticoat, and ran swiftly 
up the track toward the coming train. As it 
approached, she waved the danger-signal, and it 
was heeded. Among the hundreds of lives 
that were saved were a number of Frenchmen, 
at whose instigation President Carnot bestowed 



A Consecrated Personality. 255 

the cross of the Legion of Honor. The heroic 
act of the little girl had in it all the elements 
of heroism — she gave herself. Until we give 
that, all else counts but little. 

Bishop Simpson, in his Yale Lectures on 
Preaching, told of an exhibition he once at- 
tended, the most marvelous, he said, in all his 
life. There was a young man who, when schools 
for imbeciles began to be opened in Europe, 
moved with benevolence, and possessing wealth 
and leisure, went to Europe to study the meth- 
ods, and finding they were feasible, he came 
back to open a like institution on our shores. 

He advertised for the most imbecile child that 
he could possibly get, and the worst one that 
came was a little fellow, five years old, who never 
had stood or taken a step or chewed a hard sub- 
stance, had no power of movement, could only 
lie a helpless mass of flesh on the floor; and 
that was the child whom this man was to cure 
somehow, and whose latent ability he was some- 
how to bring forth. 

He tried in every way he could think of, but 
did not succeed. At last he determined to have 
the boy brought up at noon, a half-hour every 
day, and laid on the carpet in his room, and he 
would lie down beside him, to see if, by any 



256 Heavenly Trade-winds, 

means, lie could stir any sort of suggestion in 
the helpless lump of flesh. Ah! that was more 
than Elisha did; for it was day after day, over 
and over again. In order that he might not 
waste his time, and that he might do something, 
he was accustomed to read aloud from some 
author, as he lay by the side of this helpless 
child. 

It went on in this way for six months, and 
there was no sign of recognition until one day, 
utterly wearied, he intermitted reading, and he 
noticed that there was a strange restlessness in 
this little mass of humanity, and at once he put 
himself in connection with it, and there was a 
trembling movement of the hand, and he put 
his head down toward the little hand; and at 
last, after great effort, the little helpless fellow 
did manage to lay his finger tremblingly on his 
lips, as though he said: "I miss that noise; 
please make it." And then he knew he had 
control of the boy, and by manipulations of his 
muscles carefully he taught him to walk. 

Five years after that, Bishop Simpson said he 
saw him stand on a platform, and repeat the 
names of the Presidents of the United States, 
and answer accurately many questions concern- 
ing our national history. "And," said the bishop, 



A Consecrated Personality. 257 



"was there ever such condescension ?" And 
then he thought again within himself: " There 
was one other such condescension, when he who 
was God himself lowered himself to my capacity 
in the Incarnation, and lay down beside me, and 
helped me, when I was blinded and smitten and 
made imbecile by sin, and waited twenty years, 
until, at last, I put my fingers on his lips, and 
said, 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth/ M 
Ah! well may we sing: 

"When I survey the wondrous cross 
On which the Prince of glory died, 
My richest gain I count but loss, 

And pour contempt on all my pride. 

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, 
Save in the death of Christ, my God ; 

All the vain things that charm me most, 
I sacrifice them to his blood. 

See, from his head, his hands, his feet. 

Sorrow and love flow mingled down : 
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, 

Or thorns compose so rich a crown ? 

Were the whole realm of nature mine. 

That were a present far too small ; 
Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands mv soul, mv life, my all." 



XVII. 

IN THE APPLE ORCHARD * 

" As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my 
beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with 
great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." — Song 
of Solomon ii, 3. 

I HAVE been tenting in an apple orchard this 
summer, and can not expect to get away 
from it all at once, and so must bring you my 
first message from summer meditations from 
under the shade of orchard boughs during the 
long, dreamy summer days. I have experienced 
what Celia Thaxter once wrote about: 

"Buttercups nodded, and said 'good-bye ;' 
Clover and daisy went off together ; 
But the fragrant water-lilies lie 
Yet moored in the golden August weather. 

The swallows chatter about their flight, 
The cricket chirps like a rare good fellow; 

The asters twinkle in clusters bright, 

While the corn grows ripe and the apples mellow." 

August is a time when nature seems almost 
to stand still and take a little breathing spell be- 
fore the rarely beautiful but destructive work of 
autumn begins. To use again the picture of the 



* First sermon after vacation. 

253 



In the Apple Orchard. 259 



poet, we find it beautifully portrayed by Annie 
Lobby's poetic pencil: 

"The cornstalk tassels on the ridge 
Are bronzing in the sun; 
The elderberries by the bridge, 
And all along the run, 

Grow purple through the golden days ; 

Barberries by the wall 
Glow crimson in the silver haze 

That ushers in the fall. 

Old Ocean dreams, in slumbers deep, 

Of wintry storms to come ; 
In far-off mountain caverns sleep 

The winds; the brooks are dumb. 

The partridge, in lone country lanes, 

Whirs low a speckled wing; 
Silence through all the woodland reigns, 

The birds forget to sing. 

From yellow cornfields slowly pass 

The crows, with clanging cry ; 
All day upon the orchard grass 

Ripe apples fall. A sigh 

Escapes the earth at thought of death, 

For summer's life so brief, 
And, fluttering on that sigh's faint breath, 

Falls down the first red leaf." 

Perhaps if I give you a single other poetic 
picture, we will be able to settle down to a more 
serious study of our apple-tree lesson : 

4 'Yonder, between two mountains vast, 
The bright shield of the lake is cast. 



260 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



O splendor of the far, deep sky, 

Of mountains soaring low and high, 

Of lake that flashes at its feet, 

Of ferns and mosses cool and sweet; 

beauty, brooding everywhere, 
The essence of the earth and air! 

1 lie amid the goldenrod, 

I love to see it lean and nod ; 
I love to feel the grassy sod 
Whose kindly breast will hold me last, 
Whose patient arms will hold me fast — 
Fold me from sunshine and from song, 
Fold me from sorrow and from wrong; 
Through gleaming gates of goldenrod 
I'll pass into the rest of God." 

What a delightful thing it is that the Bible is 
so fresh and delightful in its illustrations! The 
grass is never greener than on its pages; the 
lilies never so beautiful as when the Master uses 
them to adorn his sermon. The cedar-trees are 
never so fragrant as when we breathe their 
aroma through the Psalms of David. Every 
season is mirrored in the Bible, and so the apple- 
tree conies to us as a study peculiarly fitting to 
this time of the year. 

My meditation has run on this wise: In what 
respect does an apple-tree fairly represent a 
human life? And here are some of the reasons 
that appeal to me: 

First, the apple-tree fairly represents the aver- 



In the Apple Orchard. 261 

age, every-day capabilities of mankind. The 
apple-tree is not a genius like the cherry or the 
peach or the orange, but it is infinitely more use- 
ful in the long run. If all the people in the 
country were going to vote on what orchard fruit- 
tree should be kept, if all but one were to be 
destroyed, I think the apple-tree would be elected 
without doubt by an overwhelming majority. So 
the great mass of men and women are not 
geniuses ; they have just ordinary capabilities. 

I think that sometimes a good deal of harm 
is done to young people by unwise appeals to a 
certain kind of ambition. Young men especially 
have been so often exhorted to cultivate self- 
reliance, and to aim at high destiny, and in this 
country so much has been said about Washing- 
ton with his surveyor's chain, Franklin setting 
type, Grant in the tannery, Lincoln splitting 
rails, and Garfield on the tow-path, that it would 
not be astonishing if now and then a young 
man's head became turned, even as the poor Eng- 
lish boy whom Dr. Morley Punshon tells about, 
who tried to commit suicide, and left a little note 
giving as his reason that he was made u by God 
to be a man, but doomed by man to be a grocer." 
Nothing is more perilous to all practical success 
than wild, unreal air-castle building. 



262 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

The fact is, that nine-tenths of all of us will 
continue in the line of life we are, or something 
very much like it, until the end of the chapter. 
That is nothing to be discouraged about. The 
world's civilization depends not upon some er- 
ratic genius here and there, however great his 
power may be for good, but upon the great mul- 
titude of honest, straightforward men and women, 
who bear their average of apple fruitage for the 
feeding of this hungrv world. 

Phillips Brooks, in a great sermon on "The 
Man with One Talent," declares that u it seems 
very certain that the world is to grow better and 
richer in the future, however it has been in the 
past, not by the magnificent achievements of the 
highly-gifted few, but by the patient faithfulness 
of the one-talented many. If we could draw 
back the curtains of the millennium and look in, 
w T e should see, not a Hercules here and there 
standing on the world-wasting monsters he had 
killed, but a world full of men, each with an arm 
of moderate muscle, but each triumphant over 
his own little piece of the obstinacy of earth or 
the ferocity of the brutes. It seems as if the 
heroes have done almost all for the world that 
they can do, and not much more can come till 



In the Apple Orchard. 263 



common men awake and take their common 
tasks. " 

Down in the southwestern tropics, and here 
and there in rare gardens throughout the world, 
you may find a century-plant. It is a moderate- 
sized shrub ordinarily, but when the flowering- 
time draws near it will, within a few weeks, send 
up a stalk thirty feet high, and shoot forth more 
than a score of branches, and clothe itself with a 
robe of golden flowers. While they last it is 
marvelously lovely, and will attract attention 
from all within reach. But after a few weeks its 
blossoms will wither and drop off, and for a hun- 
dred years again it will sink into insignificance. 

What a lonely world for flowers it would be 
if it were the only plant that yielded blossoms ! 
The humble geraniums and roses and heliotropes 
are of far more worth than these century won- 
ders. So there is no cause for discouragement 
or disappointment because you feel that special 
genius has not been given you. The world is 
not to be lifted out of its diseased and sinful con- 
ditions into the sweet and fragrant atmosphere of 
moral and spiritual health by century-plants, 
however glorious they may be, but rather by the 
sweet fragrance of apple-blossoms blooming on 



264 



He a venl y Trade - winds. 



all the orchards of the earth. How richly Mrs. 
Browning re-enforces our thought: 

" Great deeds are trumpeted, loud bells are rung, 

And men turn round to see ; 
The high peaks echo to the paeans sung 

O'er some great victory; 
And yet great deeds are few. The mightiest men 
Find opportunities but now and then. 

Shall one sit idle through long days of peace, 

Waiting for walls to scale? 
Or lie in port until some golden fleece 

Lures him to face the gale? 
There *s work enough, why idly then delay? 
His work counts most who labors every day. 

A torrent sweeps adown the mountain's brow 

With foam and flash and roar; 
Anon its strength is spent, — where is it now? 

Its one short day is o'er. 
But the clear stream that through the meadow flows, 
All the long summer on its mission goes. 

Better the steady flow ; the torrent's dash 

Soon leaves its rent track dry ; 
The light we love is not the lightning flash 

From out a midnight sky. 
But the sweet sunshine, whose unfailing ray 
From its calm throne of blue lights every day. 

The sweetest lives are those to duty wed, 

Whose deeds, both great and small, 
Are close-knit strands of an unbroken thread, 

Where love ennobles all. 
The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells ; 
The Book of Life the shining record tells." 



In the Apple Orchard. 265 



The apple-tree is a good illustration of human 
life in this, that it can not bear fruit successfully 
without a great deal of pruning. A certain 
farmer raises the most luscious apples, and is 
famous among orchardists. His fruit is bigger 
and better than that of any of his neighbors. On 
being asked how he got rid of windfalls and 
dwarfs, his reply was couched in the single 
word, "Pinching." It seems in the spring, when 
he finds branches putting on airs, he pinches off 
some of the blossoms and whispers to the bal- 
ance, "Now you go off about your business, or 
you will get pinched, too;" and the result is that 
the balance of the blossoms get themselves into 
noble apples as soon as ever they can. In addi- 
tion to this pinching of the blossoms, he often 
goes through his orchard in July with a big pair 
of shears, and lops off branches that are loafing, 
and nips shoots that are distracting the growing 
fruit by diverting the juices that should make for 
apples, into useless wood. An apple-tree set out 
in the rich soil, and allowed to have its own way 
without being pruned or trimmed, will soon go 
to ruin. 

I saw some orchards like that this summer, 

that had been left unpruned for two or three 

years, until what the farmers call "water-sprouts" 

18 



266 Heavenly Trade-winds, 



had grown up from the trunk and off from the 
branches, until not only is all the beauty of the 
trees destroyed, but they bear no fruit. How 
often we see people the same way! — full of the 
water-sprouts of selfishness, utterly spoiled and 
fruitless for the lack of the pruning-knife of self- 
denial. Christ never uttered anything more true 
than this: "The disciple is not above his Mas- 
ter." If we are going to bear spiritual fruit like 
Jesus Christ, then we must be willing to suffer 
with him. 

Again, the apple-tree is like the growing hu- 
man life, in that it needs to have a higher life 
grafted into it. Bishop D. W. Clark relates that 
once a noted horticulturist took him into his 
nursery. It was a fine sight, — thousands of trees 
standing in long rows, and comprising all the 
richest varieties of delicious fruit. Whatever 
science and skill and carefulness could contribute 
to its perfection was secured. The bishop said 
to the nurseryman: "I suppose you are very 
careful in the selection of your seeds and kernels 
to get only the rarest quality of fruit." 

" O no," he replied ; " we plant whatever comes 
to hand, and then we bud them. Every one of 
those trees was budded." 

This is an interesting fact in horticulture. 



In the Apple Orchard. 267 



When a gardener wishes to raise a rare and 
splendid fruit, he takes a bud or sprout from a 
bearing tree and grafts it. No matter how poor 
a variety the tree or stalk may be upon which 
he grafts it, the bud will preserve its own iden- 
tity, and when it grows up will bear its own 
fruit. Thus a tree is often made to bear fruit 
entirely different from and very superior to that 
which its own nature would have produced. 

So we are taught that God has in this world 
a system of spiritual horticulture. Though you 
have been a sinner against God, and have pro- 
duced only the sour fruits of selfishness, if you 
will open your heart to him, he will come in, 
and engraft into your character the uncorrupt- 
ible seed of the Word of God, no matter how 
unpromising the variety of the individual. Jesus 
Christ came down from heaven "to seek and to 
save that which was lost," and if you will allow 
his influence in your heart, his own divine life 
will take root, and grow up in your nature, pre- 
serving its own identity; will blossom in unfad- 
ing beauty, send forth heavenly odors, and ripen 
into immortal fruit. Are there not some who 
need to learn this deep, fundamental lesson of 
the apple-orchard? 

This comparison between the apple-tree and 



268 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



the human life may be continued further, in the 
enemies that threaten each. As a worm at the 
heart kills the apple-tree, so does sin in the hu- 
man heart destroy the beauty and fruitfulness of 
the life. How many of these ugly and vicious 
bugs there are ! One is bad company. A writer 
about apple-orchards says that one day he saw a 
nurseryman on a step-ladder in the branches of 
a Baldwin tree in July. Knowing that Bald- 
wins are not picked until October, he asked him 
if he was n't crazy, gathering his apples so early. 
" These apples," the nurseryman said, u that I 
am taking off are stunted, and never will amount 
to anything. I have to cleanse my trees, lest 
the good fruit be spoiled by bad company. 
These wormy and sickly apples take as much 
from the tree as the other, sound apples; but 
you see they don't appropriate it as well." 

There is nothing that young people — and old 
people, too, for that matter — need to be more 
careful about than their associations. It is never 
wise or safe to stow yourself away with rotten 
apples. You can not do so except as a mission- 
ary, going with a purpose to help and save, and 
hope to escape the taint yourself. 

Another one of these dangerous insects — and 
indeed one of the worst, because he is an edu- 



In the Apple Orchard. 269 



cated worm — may be put under the head of bad 
papers and bad books. One day a gentleman 
in India went into his library, and took down a 
book from the shelf. As he did so, he felt a 
slight pain in his finger, like the prick of a pin. 
He thought that a pin had been stuck by some 
careless person in the cover of the book. But 
soon his finger began to swell, then his arm, and 
then his whole body, and in a few days he died. 
It was not a pin in the book, but a small and 
deadly serpent. 

One can not but shudder at the thought ol 
the serpents among the books of our own time. 
Many of them nestle in the foliage of our most 
fascinating literature, and coil around the flowers 
whose perfume intoxicates the senses. Many 
people read and are charmed by the plot of a 
story, by the skill with which the characters are 
sculptured, or by the gorgeousness of the word- 
painting, and hardly feel the pin-prick of evil 
that is insinuated. But the deadly poison gets 
into the blood nevertheless. If we could write a 
true epitaph to put on the gravestones above 
multitudes of wrecked and ruined lives, it would 
be: " Poisoned by serpents among the books!" 

The only real safety is to cultivate a taste for 
good books. The really well-fed man is never 



270 



He a venl y Trade - winds. 



tempted to go hunting in the back yard that he 
may eat the filth from his neighbor's swill-tubs; 
and so the man or woman whose mind is prop- 
erly nourished has no disposition to go nosing 
about into the slop-barrels of the news-stands in 
search of diseased and poisonous provender. 

Finally, the apple-tree, like a human life, is 
judged by its fruit. Nothing can take the place 
of that, and no one is set in circumstances so 
barren but that, by fidelity and devotion, he may 
bear fruit pleasant to the taste of his fellows and 
delightful to the heart of God. 

Mrs. Celia Thaxter, whose little poem I quoted 
at the opening of this sermon, and who has, dur- 
ing the last few days, gone home, is an apt illus- 
tration of how the graces of the Spirit can clothe 
a life with beauty and charm. She lived on the 
Isle of Shoals, on the New England coast. By 
her skillful hands she turned the barren land into 
"An Island Garden, 1 ' and her home became a 
bower of beauty and flowers. But many who 
were never permitted to share her graceful hos- 
pitality have been blessed by her writings. Her 
last book gives a charming picture of her life at 
Appledore. "As I work," she says, "among my 
flowers, I find myself talking to them, reasoning 
and remonstrating with them, and adoring them. 



In the Apple Orchard, 271 



as if they were human beings. Much laughter 
I provoke among my friends by so doing, but 
that is of no consequence. We are on such good 
terms, my flowers and I. Altogether lovely are 
they out of doors; but I plant and tend them al- 
ways with the thought of the joy they will be in 
the house also.' 5 

As a writer she was fresh and vigorous, and. 
both her poetry and prose were rich in sweetness 
and light. She has touched the deeper springs 
of experience in many of her poems, and these 
have nerved the sad and despondent to a loftier 
courage, as I am sure you will feel in this one, 
with which I close : 

"Because I hold it sinful to despond, 
And will not let the bitterness of life 
Blind me with burning tears, but look beyond 
Its tumults and its strife; 

Because I lift my head above the mist, 

Where the sun shines and the broad breezes blow, 

By every ray and every raindrop kissed 
That God's love doth bestow, — 

Think you I find no bitterness at all — 

No burden to be borne, like Christian's pack:* 

Think you there are no ready tears to fall, 
Because I keep them back? 

Why should I hug life's ills with cold reserve, 
To curse myself and all who love me? Nay! 

A thousand times more good than I deserve 
God gives me every day. 



272 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



And in each one of these rebellious tears, 

Kept bravely back, he makes a rainbow shine. 

Grateful, I take his slightest gift. No fears 
Nor any doubts are mine. 

Dark skies must clear; and, when the clouds are past, 
One golden day redeems a weary year. 

Patient I listen, sure that sweet at last 
Will sound his voice of cheer. 

Then vex me not with chiding ! Let me be ! 

I must be glad and grateful to the end. 
I grudge you not your cold and darkness. Me 

The powers of light befriend." 



XVIII. 



THE KING'S SIGNET-RING, 

"That day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O 
Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, 
and I will make thee as a signet : for I have chosen thee, 
saith the Lord of hosts." — Haggai ii, 23. 

"As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah, the son of Je- 
hoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet upon my right hand, 
yet would I pluck thee hence."— Jeremiah xxii, 24. 

IT is hardly possible for us, in these modern 
days, to comprehend the importance attached 
to seals and signet-rings in the days when it was 
a rare thing for a king to know how to write his 
name. In the olden days no document was re- 
garded as authentic unless it was attested by a 
signet or seal. Sometimes these stones were 
pierced through their length, and hung by a 
string or chain from the arm or neck; but the 
most common way was to have a man's sign — 
which stood for himself everywhere it was found 
on a document — set in a ring for his finger. As 
an impression from the signet-ring of the mon- 
arch gave the force of a royal decree to any in- 
strument to which it was affixed, so the delivery 
or transfer of it to any one gave the power of 

273 



274 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

using the royal name; and thus the king was 
bound by their actions, and it was the highest 
possible honor that could be given to any 
subject. 

A little reflection shows us how splendid is 
this illustration of God's confidence in and love 
for those who trust him ; for Zerubbabel, the son 
of Shealtiel, in that far-away time, was no dearer 
to the heart of God than John, the son of James, 
is, in Brooklyn, in our own day. What dearer 
thing could God say to his child than he said 
here, in this first Scripture: "I will make thee 
as the signet-ring on my finger?" The more we 
study it, the greater will be the treasure we find 
in it. 

The signet-ring was a precious ornament, 
greatly delighted in by the owner, and always 
worn. So God hath chosen us to be the orna- 
ment of his person in this world; and afterwards, 
after we are received into heaven, we will be 
counted up among his jewels, if we are faithful 
to him. What a high and honorable position! 
How strange that any one having such a call 
should regret the perishing pleasures of sin ! 

Two or three years ago, when Captain Murrell, 
of the steamship Missouri] found the Danish 
steamer Denmark, with her seven hundred pas- 



The King's Signet-ring. 



275 



sengers, lying helpless in mid-ocean, he was 
obliged to come to some decision as to what he 
would do in the case. His cargo filled his vessel, 
and he was under obligations to carry it across 
the Atlantic; but, on the other hand, hundreds 
of human beings were in danger, and in a little 
while must sink in the ingulfing waves. He 
had to choose between landing the cargo and 
saving the men and women and children — be- 
tween steering straight for the port or turning 
aside to the iVzores, where he could land the im- 
periled passengers. 

He did not take long to decide. He took the 
responsibility, and overboard went the bales of 
rags, to make room for living men and women 
and children. He had his reward in the love 
and affection of the rescued, in the approval of 
his employers, in the praise of millions of all 
lands, and finally in the honor of knighthood 
in the kingdom of Denmark. He sacrificed 
rags that he might save lives, and thus won 
honor and fame and reputation that few men 
would achieve in a lifetime of ambitious toil. 

Are there not multitudes to-day in this 
Church, and in many another Church, who are 
as busily employed as the captain of the Mis- 
souri — people who have their own work to do, 



276 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

their voyage all planned, their cargo on board, 
their course marked out? But souls are perish- 
ing, men and women capable of becoming signet- 
rings of Almighty God are suffering and dying. 
Shall we excuse ourselves in such an emergency? 
Shall we cling to our own personal ease or pur- 
pose, while souls for whom Christ died are 
struggling hopelessly in the waves about us? 
What advantage can there be in the possession 
of the proudest success, in business or profes- 
sional life or society, that we can fondly dream 
of, if along with it there shall be haunting mem- 
ories of duties undone, of opportunities neg- 
lected — of immortal brilliants for the Savior's 
crown, who might have been rescued, but who 
have sunk in the darkness? O, my Christian 
brother or sister, throw overboard the rags, and 
let the earthly cargo perish if it has to, but do 
not miss an opportunity to bring home souls in 
safety into the heavenly port. 

There is indicated here the safety of those 
who with gladness yield themselves up to this 
honorable station, as the signet-rings of the 
heavenly King. Nothing is so safe as the signet. 
You must break through all the defenses, and 
overcome the king himself, in order to get that. 



The King's Signet-ring. 



277 



Think of all the defenses that protect the king. 
There are the troops that guard the outer gates 
of his palace; then, if you were to overcome 
them and get inside, there are still other guards 
at the door; and when you get close to his own 
room, there is the private body-guard; and then, 
when you get into his presence, the signet is 
worn on his finger, and for it he will fight as if 
for his life. 

Apply all this to God in his relation to his 
children, and how full of comfort it is ! All 
these shining worlds that decorate the sky to- 
night, they are at the beck and call of him who 
wears you on his signet-finger. Does he not say 
we are as the apple of his eye? Does not Paul 
say, if while we were yet sinners Christ died for 
us, shall he not now, since we have given our 
hearts to him, freely give us all things? 

This illustration suggests the noble work to 
which God calls us. The signet was used to 
make covenants with. Its impression bound 
the king. So in the salvation of men and 
women, God uses us to win them from the evil 
mastery of sin, and to make covenant with them 
for a new and heavenly life. In every one of 
these men and women we are meeting daily, 



278 Heavenly Trade -winds. 



there is enough of divine nobility left to make 
covenant with heaven. As some poet sings: 

"The huge, rough stones from out the mire, 
Unsightly and unfair. 
Have veins of purest metal hid 
Beneath the surface there. 

Few rocks so bare but to their heights 

Some tiny moss-plant clings, 
And round the peaks so desolate 

The sea-bird sits and sings. 

Believe, me, too, that rugged souls 

Beneath their rudeness hide 
Much that is beautiful and good, — 

We Ve all our angel side. 

In all there is an inner depth, 

A far off secret way, 
Where, through the windows of the soul, 

God sends his smiling ray." 

In the chapel of the woman's prison at Sher- 
bourne, Mass., there is a striking pictnre of 
Christ standing before the woman taken in 
adultery. The light beaming from his face, the 
pose of his figure, the outstretched hands, seem 
to utter a benediction of hope over the prostrate 
woman. Beneath it is written, "Go and sin no 
more." One evening, when the women were 
dismissed after prayers, one remained in her 
seat. She was one of the worst to manage of 
all the prisoners. The matron, supposing some 



The King's Signet-ring. 



279 



new trouble was brewing, went and asked what 
was the matter. The woman, with her eyes 
fixed on the picture, said; "I want to go into 
the solitary cell." "Why," said the matron, 
"what do you mean? You have just had to 
spend a week there!" "I w 7 ant," said the 
woman, "to go and be alone, where I can think 
about Him that is in that picture." 

She w r ent into solitary confinement, remained 
a week, and came out to serve the rest of her 
sentence with a deportment that called for no 
criticism, and after leaving the prison lived an 
upright life. If the painter of that picture 
could get on canvas an expression of Christ 
with such power, can not we, who are the per- 
sonal signet-rings of God, get the same power 
into our lives and faces? 

Ah ! what ability in all the world is there so 
splendid as that — the power to inspire faith in 
those who are disheartened and discouraged and 
defeated, who no longer believe in the reality 
of a holy life ; the ability to awake in them again, 
not only a belief in the possibility of goodness, 
but to hope for it in themselves, as the most 
splendid gift God can bestow on mortals? 

I am convinced more and more that what we 
need above everything else is the God living in 



28o Heavenly Trade-winds. 



us, so that we, in our own day and time, are God 
manifest in the flesh to those whom we seek to 
win. To win men's souls from the grip of pas- 
sion and sin, requires, on our part, hearts hot 
with love and sympathy. It is a work that can 
not be done in a cold, conventional sort of spirit. 
You must love the work, the fire of your enthu- 
siasm for it must drive you, master you, so that 
you must save souls or die. All great work re- 
quires that kind of earnestness, the putting of 
one's very self into it. 

Before beginning a new story, Charles Dick- 
ens was in the habit of spending weeks, and 
sometimes months, in the vicinity where the 
scene was laid, studying every detail of char- 
acter, place, and surroundings. His writings 
proved the care he took in the study of men. 
His immortal works were his reward. 

Audubon, the ornithologist, was equally pains- 
taking and self-sacrificing. He counted his phys- 
ical comforts as nothing compared with success 
in his work. He would rise at midnight, night 
after night, and go out into the swamps to study 
the habits of certain night-hawks. He would 
crouch motionless for hours in the dark and fog, 
feeling himself well rewarded if, after weeks of 
waiting, he secured one additional fact about a 



The King's Signet-ring. 281 



single bird. During one summer he went, day 
after day, to the bayous near New Orleans to ob- 
serve a very shy waterfowl. He would have to 
stand almost up to his neck in the nearly stag, 
nant water, scarcely breathing, while countless 
poisonous moccasin-snakes swam sometimes 
within a few inches past his face, and great alli- 
gators passed and repassed his silent watch. "It 
was not pleasant," he said, as his face glowed 
with enthusiasm; "but what of that? I have the 
picture of the bird." 

He would do that for the picture of a bird! 
What are you doing to seek out immortal souls 
and bring them home to heaven? O, we must 
have heart-blood in this work! 

They tell us that in Scotland there is a battle- 
field on which the natives of the soil and the 
Saxons once met in terrible conflict. All over 
that old battle-field grows the beautiful Scotch 
heather, except in one spot. There a little blue 
flower grows abundantly. No flowers like them 
are to be found for many a league around. Why 
are they there? The reason given is this: Just 
in the spot where they grow, the bodies of the 
slain were buried, and the earth was saturated 
with the blood of the victims. The seeds of 
these flowers were there before; but as soon as 

19 



2.82 



He a v exl } ' Trade - n vxns. 



the blood touched them they sprang up, and 
every blue flower on Cuiioden's field, as it bends 
to the mountain breeze, is a memorial of the 
brave warriors who dyed the heathery sod with 
their crimson gore. 

Brother, sister, let us learn the lesson from 
the old Scotch battle-field. There are seeds of 
noble and holy deeds lying dormant in the minds 
and hearts of people we meet every day. They 
only need that our warm heart's blood shall 
touch them to make them leap) into being. Shall 
we dare to be lethargic or sluggish when every 
common day may hold possibilities like that? 

There was a young man whom we will call 
Theodore — for it is a true story — who had been 
reared in a Christian home. He had early ac- 
cepted Christ as his Savior, and had entered the 
Church. When he was about sixteen or seven- 
teen, he went away from home to enter college. 
At the boarding-house where he was to stay, 
there were several other young men, most of 
whom were older than himself. Only two of 
these were Christians. As the company gath- 
ered about the tea-table on the first da}' of the 
term, the landlady said: 

" Master Theodore, will you return thanks?" 

Theodore blushed. He was a timid bow and 



The King's Signet-ring. 



283 



he was conscious that every eye was upon him. 
But he bent his head, and tremblingly returned 
thanks to God. 

That night he could not sleep. 'm in for 
it!" he said to himself. ' k I '11 be called on every 
meal this term, and blush and stammer as I did 
to-night. I 'm almost sure that -brainy Howard 
was disgusted. And yet it surely wouldn't be 
the manly thing to refuse. A Christian who 
won't stand by his colors is n't half a Christian. 
No; if she keeps on asking me, I'll do it ever}' 
time." The landlady did keep on asking, and at 
length Theodore overcame his embarrassment, 
and performed the sendee with no thought of 
those who sat about. 

About the middle of the term, to his utter 
surprise, Howard, who had been regarded as 
either careless or skeptical, confessed Christ, and 
joined the Church. u Do you want to know what 
set me thinking seriously upon the subject of re- 
ligion?" asked Howard of Theodore. "I'll tell 
you: The first night you were here, you were 
called on to give thanks. I could see it was an 
awfully hard thing for you to do, and that it cost 
you a desperate struggle. I said to myself that 
the religion that would give a shv little fellow 
like you pluck enough for a thing of that kind 



284 He ave xl v Trade -winds. 



was worth having. I have been watching you 
ever since, Theodore, and even when you didn't 
know it at all, you 5 ve been influencing me. 
Under God, I owe my conversion to you." 

The sequel of this story is also worth telling. 
Howard is now a very earnest and successful 
preacher of the gospel. Theodore is a wealthy 
business man, who gives his thousands of dollars 
every year to the cause of Christ, and they both 
owe the grand success they have had to the 
blood-earnestness of that shy little boy who stood 
loyal to Christ in the hour of his trial. 

But there is another possibility that we must 
not overlook. You must have noticed at the be- 
ginning the vivid contrast of the two texts we 
are studying. How strangely they stand over 
against each other! Of one man, God says, "I 
will make thee as a signet ;'- and of the other, 
"Though you were the signet on mv right hand, 
yet would I pluck thee hence.' ' There are two 
things that stand out very strongly in the story 
of Coniah. The first is, that a pious ancestry 
will not save a man. Coniah was in the royal 
line of David. The blood of some of the noblest 
and truest men of Israel ran in his veins; but the 
wickedness of his heart rendered all this of no 
avail, and the divine judgment about him is that 



The King's Signet-ring. 



285 



he shall be plucked off from the finger of God, 
and hurled in contempt to the earth. And surely 
the dark story of Coniah fully fulfills the sad 
prophecy. After only three months' reign on the 
throne of his fathers, he was captured and car- 
ried away to Babylon a prisoner, and there for 
thirty-six long years he was kept in a miserable 
dungeon on miserable fare. From a throne to a 
dungeon; from the prospect of ambitious success 
to a lifetime hidden away with the loathsome 
mold and bats and horrible conditions of ancient 
prisons ! 

This suggests to us the final thought, that 
ruin is certain unless sin is forsaken. We must 
choose between peace and heaven and our sins. 
God help you to do that to-night ! 

The story is told of a young man who came 
to an old minister and said to him: "I wish you 
would pray with me ; I seem to have lost my ac- 
ceptance with God." The dear old man said: 
" I will. Suppose we kneel down here, and pray 
together. " And the old saint prayed most fer- 
vently for the young man. After they arose from 
their knees, he said: "Are you indulging, my 
dear brother, in anything which your conscience 
tells you is wrong ?" The young man quickly 
answered: "I am sure it is not wrong; O no!" 



286 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



" Well," said the old minister, " suppose we 
pray again." And again he prayed most ear- 
nestly for his young brother, and then at last he 
turned and said: "I am sure there is something 
in your way. You must give up anything and 
everything that you have a doubt about its being 
right." The great drops of agony stood on the 
brow of the young man as he exclaimed: "I can 
not give it up; it will kill me." The aged saint 
said solemnly and tenderly: "It is not much to 
die, but it is dreadful to do wrong." In a few 
moments, after a sharp struggle, the young man 
said, "It's done!" and the very light of heaven 
seemed to be shining in his face. 

If I speak to any one to-night who is in the 
midst of such a temptation, and you feel you are 
drifting away from your close fellowship with 
God, I beg of you that you break with sin here 
and now. Cast it away forever. Do not longer 
risk that awful hour when God shall say to thee : 
"Though thou art the signet-ring on my finger, 
I will pluck thee hence." 



XIX. 



THE ANGEL FACE. 



' And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly 
upon him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel." — 
Acts vi, 15. 

T^HE biography of Stephen is condensed into 



1 a very few words in the New Testament 
record, but he has occupied a very large place in 
the thought of Christian people because of his 
pure, brave life, and heroic death. If a man's 
life is intensely good, a very little counts for a 
great deal ; and all that we know about Stephen 
is of that dynamic kind that paints him large be- 
fore our thought and our admiration. 

He was the first of the martyrs, because he 
was the first to leap into the fray. His ardor was 
on fire. His love for Christ was pure and noble, 
and no opposition could daunt him for an hour. 
He never dallied with the question as to whether 
he would do his duty or not. He seized hold of 
the first opportunity to preach in clear notes the 
message of his Master. The end came quickly, 
and seemed to be disastrous enough. How r dis- 
tinct the figure of that strong, clear-cut, brave 




288 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



young man stands out against the background of 
hatred, meanness, passion, cruelty, and selfish- 
ness of that wild, maddened mob that surged 
about him, and finally seized upon him in the 
street, and dragged him into the council, where 
their lying witnesses, which they had bribed to 
bear testimony against him, gave their false wit- 
ness before the council! The contrast between 
this pure, young disciple of Christ, and the angry 
throng that sought his condemnation, was so 
great as to attract the attention even of the preju- 
diced throng that crowded the council-room ; for 
"all that sat in the council looking steadfastly 
on him, saw his face as it had been the face of 
an angel." 

Canon Knox-Little says, with graphic force, 
that a face is the dial-plate of the soul. It takes 
the lights and shadows of varying feelings, hopes, 
and fears, and by expression records for others 
the inner variation of the movements of the 
soul. Who has not noticed the effect upon him- 
self of a face in a strange crowd? Our eyes 
rested but for a moment upon the features of one 
who happened at that time to be in rapturous 
joy or overwhelming sorrow, and we seemed at 
the instant to look through an open window into 
a human heart so like our own that we compre- 



The Ax gel Face. 



289 



hended at a glance all the joy or sorrow behind 
it. Jesus Christ had a face like that — a face 
which if a man saw he could never forget. When 
they came into the garden of Gethsemane, how 
startled and overwhelmed they were at a single 
glance of his face ! 

Christ looked once full in the face of a wicked 
woman of the town, and she was drawn away 
from her sin, and heavenly love was awakened 
in her heart to live forever. Christ only looked 
at Peter in the dawn of that ^morning of agony 
and bitterness, when the treacherous lie he had 
just told made him shrink and shiver over the 
fire, and it melted him to penitence, and aroused 
in him a courage which never faltered again. 
How beautifully Mrs. Merrill Gates sings about 
the power of the face of Christ : 

"Once, at my very side, 
Shone there a Face, 
Full of unfathomed love, 
Full of all grace. 

There glanced my father's look, 

Speaking to me ; 
Beamed there my brother's brow, 

Noble and free. 

Peaceful and innocent ; 

Pure, like my child ; 
Deep, as my husband's heart, — 

On me it smiled. 



290 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



In it there gleamed a light — 

Ah ! what a glow ! — 
Of my dear, friendly loves, 

All that I know. 

From it a radiance streamed — 

Sunlight sublime ! 
There gathered holy looks, 

Those of all time. 

Aspects of sainted souls — 

Felt I their tears — 
Full of all heavenliness, 

Martyrs and seers, — 

Mighty, angelic power. 

Seraphic grace, 
Mingled their mellow fires 

In that One Face ! 

Opened eternity ; 

Then, at a word, 
Knew I the Face of Him — 

Jesus, my Lord !" 

The face of young Stephen had the reflected 
glow of that one great Face on it, as he sat there 
before the council. And as the gloom gathered 
that day in the darkening night, there was one 
sun-bright spot, brighter than any electric-light 
of modern times — it was the face of Stephen. 
Sitting there among his judges was a young man 
of about his own age, perhaps. He was an edu- 
cated, bright fellow; a keen, thoughtful young 
lawyer, just coming out from the best law-office 



The Angel Face, 



291 



in the town. But he was hot in his prejudices; 
an ardent, zealous, fiery soul; and, withal, ex- 
ceedingly religious as he understood it. But as 
he gazed that evening on the face of Stephen, 
it made an impression on him that he could 
never get over; and at last, many years after- 
ward, Paul the apostle — transformed, even in his 
name, from Saul the lawyer, by conversion and 
regeneration — remembered that glorious face, and 
saw in it the possibility for such a glorious trans- 
formation to come to every man who gives him- 
self up to be a whole-souled disciple of Jesus 
Christ; and, writing to the Corinthians, he de- 
clares: "We all, with unveiled face, reflecting as 
a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed 
into the same image from glory to glory. " 

Now, if this is one of the possibilities of hu- 
manity, aided by that Divine favor and love 
which are in the reach of every one of us, it 
certainly behooves us to ask with all earnestness 
concerning the characteristics of the angel face. 
Fortunately, something has been made known 
to us in God's Word concerning it. From the 
descriptions that are given us of angels, we 
know that it is an illumined face, and that light 
is one of its chief features. The angel that 
guarded the tomb of the Lord Christ had a face 



292 



HE A J r ENL 1 T Tra BE-U VXDS. 



like lightning; and we are told distinctly that 
God "maketh his angels spirits, his messengers 
a flame of fire, as the sun shining in its strength/' 
To have the angel face, then, is to have a face 
on fire, lighted from heaven. These human 
bodies of ours, made out of clay, would seem to 
be very poor mediums for spiritual light; but 
that it is gloriously possible for the Lord to re- 
veal himself through them can be proved by 
testimony from even* age of the world's history, 
and more certainly in our own time than any other. 

We are told that when Moses came down 
from the mountain, having been for many days 
in fellowship with God, at first his face shone 
with such lustrous glory that the people could 
not look on him. And how suggestively it is 
added that Moses wist not that his face shone! 
It was the inner glory from his heart, on fire 
with fellowship with God's great purpose — the 
reflected glory of God, with whom he had com- 
muned. 

The story is told of a Negro slave, in the old 
slavery days, whose mistress said to her: k 'When 
I heard you singing on the house-top, I thought 
you fanatical; but when I saw your beaming 
face, I could not help feeling how different that 
was from me!" The colored woman replied: 



The Angel Face. 



293 



"Ah! missus, the light you saw in my face was 
not from me — it all came 'fleeted from de cross; 
and there is heaps more for every poor sinner 
who will come near enough to catch de rays." 

It is recorded of Mr. Pennyfeather, of Lon- 
don, who was famous everywhere for the cheer 
and beauty of his Christian character, that he 
was once standing on the street, in the presence 
of a number of gentlemen, when a beggar ap- 
proached, and, turning to him, said: "You, Mr. 
Glory face, will surely give me something 
while on another occasion a little child ran 
home to his parents so happy, as she said, and 
when asked the reason, answered that she had 
met Mr. Pennyfeather, and, though he had not 
spoken a word, he had beamed on her. 

The soul-lit face is not beyond our reach now. 
If we are able to take the hard, stony coal out 
of the earth, and, touching it w r ith fire, transfig- 
ure its whole appearance, make it glow to the 
very heart with beauty and usefulness, we surely 
ought not to wonder that God is able to take 
his children — his sons and daughters, made in 
his own likeness, upon whom he hath lavished 
all the great bounty of his loving heart — and 
cause them to glow in heavenly likeness to him- 
self, and make them burning and shining lights, 



294 



He a i exl i ■ Trade - winds. 



witnessing to his presence in the earth, and his 
willingness to accept and bless and honor his 
children. 

Another characteristic of angelic character 
and beauty is, that their faces are full of restful 
peace — the peace of God, which passeth all 
understanding. God is able to give his followers 
the same kind of peace to-day. It would not 
have been astonishing if Stephen had had an 
anxious look on his face, as he looked around and 
saw only human sharks on every side of him, 
finding in even' face an enemy that thirsted for 
his blood, with no one to pity him or say one 
single word of sympathy or good cheer; but 
Isaiah's declaration is true, when he cries out in 
ecstasy to God: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
peace whose mind is stayed on thee." Stephen 
proved it true in his time, and even his enemies 
witnessed that his face was full of angelic con- 
fidence. 

God treats his saints that way yet. When 
Dr. Edward Beecher was more than eighty-five 
years old, he lost one .of his legs in an accident. 
He was not conscious during the amputation. 
After he recovered consciousness, his heroic 
Christian wife took the task of informing him of 
the loss of the limb. 



The Angel Face, 



295 



"I want you, my dear," said she, "to prepare 
yourself to hear something that will trouble you." 

" What is it?" said he. "iYny thing about any 
of the family?" 

"No," replied his wife; "you are the only one 
now that we are anxious about." Then she told 
him what the surgeons had been compelled to do. 

He closed his eyes in silence for a moment, 
and then opened them and smiled, and said: 
"It is all right." 

"Yes," said she, "it is not so very bad, after 
all; not as if you were a young man. Remem- 
ber that you have had the use of both legs now 
for more than eighty-five years, and you could 
have had them but a very few years more 
anyhow." 

When Dr. Meredith called, as soon as he 
could after the accident, and said to him, "The 
Lord had not forgotten you, or lost sight of you, 
at the time of your accident — he was still watch- 
ing you," he replied: "I am sure of it. I never 
felt him nearer to me in all my life than I did 
just then." 

What could any man have worth so much to 
him as an angelic peace like that? 

There is one other characteristic of the angel 
face, and that is, it is a strong face. Angels ex- 



296 Heavenly Trade -winds. 



eel in strength. It is said of the old Round- 
head soldiers of Cromwell's time that they were 
never afraid of the result of the battle when 
Cromwell had on his fighting face. A face that 
is the outgrowth of supreme confidence in God, 
enthusiastic devotion to Jesus Christ, and broth- 
erly sympathy and love for one's fellow-men, 
can not help being a strong face, that will com- 
fort and refresh those that look upon it. How 
much we need the strong, angel face among 
those who work for righteousness in our 
own day! 

A compositor at a printing-office was setting 
in type this verse of Scripture, u And Daniel had 
an excellent spirit in him;" but he made it read: 
"And Daniel had an excellent spine in him!" 
Mr. Spurgeon said it was not much of a mistake. 
And I assure you that all good men nowadays 
need "an excellent spine" — strong souls, which 
write strong characteristics on noble faces. Such 
men, like Daniel, can look a lion out of coun- 
tenance yet, and go to bed with more composure 
than luxurious kings, though danger lies down to 
sleep with them. 

We have already indicated a little how the 
angel face is produced, but it is worthy that we 
should study it still more clearly and definitely. 



The Angel Face. 



297 



It can never be produced except on condition of 
an angel's personal purity. Stephen was a man 
full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. Out of that 
kind of a garden of the heart the angelic face is 
grown in our time. As the brightly-colored soil 
formed by the breaking up of the great lava- 
waves that roll down the sides of a volcano pro- 
duces flowers of the brightest tint, so there is a 
garden of heavenly coloring in the face of a 
pure man or woman which is glorified by the 
outshining of a heart on fire with devotion 
to God. 

In one of the old churches in Italy there is 
painted a great picture of Christ and his twelve 
disciples at the Last Supper. An ignorant ver- 
ger, explaining the picture, said: "Him as ain't 
got no glory is Judas." No nimbus crowned 
one head. The old painter said that no glory 
light emanated from the impure soul. And as 
we, battling against sin and the lusts that tempt 
us, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, overmaster 
the flesh, the result is seen in a lightened and 
happy face. 

The angel face is also, in part, a result of 
their working together with Jesus Christ in 
service. They serve him, and see his face. In 

that hour of agony, when the mob was gnash- 

20 



298 Heavenly Trade-winds, 



ing on him, Stephen looked up, and said: "I 
see Jesus. " Angels are ministering spirits. 
When our hearts and hands are full of ministra- 
tion, our faces will be glorified by the divine 
ministry in which we are engaged. 

It is said that a parishioner of Dr. Archibald 
Alexander once came to him for consolation, say- 
ing that he found no relief in the discharge of 
his religious duties. 

"Do you pray?" inquired the Doctor. 

"Yes," he responded; "I spend whole nights 
in prayer." 

"How do you pray?" 

"I pray," he answered, "that the Lord would 
lift the light of his countenance upon me, and 
grant me peace." 

The Doctor responded: "Go and pray God 
to glorify his name, and convert sinners to him- 
self." The troubled man followed the sugges- 
tion, and soon came to a joyous experience. 

The angels in heaven ring all the joy-bells 
of the glory-world, and are full of rejoicing over 
"one sinner that repenteth." When we have 
caught their spirit, our faces will shine "with 
the solar light." Lucy Larcom sings it well: 

" Hand in hand with the angels, 
Through the world we go; 



The Axgel Face. 



299 



Brighter eyes are on us 
Than we blind ones know; 

Tenderer voices cheer us 
Than we deaf will own; 

Never, walking heavenward, 
Can we walk alone. 

Hand in hand with the angels, 

In the busy street, 
By the winter hearth-fires, 

Everywhere, we meet, 
Though unfledged and songless, 

Birds of Paradise ; 
Heaven looks at us daily 

Out of human «yes. 

Hand in hand with the angels, 

Oft in menial guise, 
By the same straight pathway 

Prince and beggar rise. 
If we drop the fingers, 

Toil-embrowned and worn, 
Then one link with heaven 

From our life is torn. 

Hand in hand with the angels, 

Some are fallen, alas! 
Soiled wings trail pollution 

Over all they pass. 
Lift them into sunshine, 

Bid them seek the sky; 
Weaker is your soaring. 

When they cease to fly. 

Hand in hand with the angels, 
Some are out of sight, 

Leading us, unknowing, 
Into paths of light. 



300 



Heavenly Trade-winds, 



Some dear hands are loosened 
From our earthly clasp, 

Soul in soul to hold us 
With a firmer grasp. 

Hand in hand with the angels, 

' T is a twisted chain, 
Winding heavenward, earthward, 

Linking joy and pain. 
There 's a mournful jarring, 

There's a clank of doubt, 
If a heart grows heavy, 

Or a hand 's left out. 



Hand in hand with the angels, 

Walking every day ; 
How the chain may lengthen, 

None of us can say; 
But we know it reaches 

From earth's lowliest one, 
To the shining seraph, 

Throned beyond the sun. 

Hand in hand with the angels, 

Blessed so to be; 
Helped are all the helpers ; 

Giving light, they see. 
He who aids another, 

Strengthens more than one; 
Sinking earth he grapples 

To the Great White Throne." 

Finally the angel face is the result of perfect 
obedience, and if we shall have the perfectly 
obedient heart, God will give us the angel face. 
Nobody pays so quickly or so splendidly as God. 



7 he Angel Face. 



301 



Some one says a single honest stroke of work 
done for God gets an immediate repayment from 
the divine Paymaster himself. 

The story is told of a teacher in a ragged 
school in Philadelphia, who had been working 
hard for many years, and had had no visible 
fruit. He was saying to a friend in the street 
one day, "I will give it up," when a little 
ragged boy pulled his coat, and urged him to 
go and see his brother. He said: "I am en- 
gaged; I will go to-morrow." 

"But my brother will not be alive to-morow. 
Come now and see him, he so wants to see you." 

The man's better nature rose in him, and 
he said a hurried good-bye to his friend, and 
went off with the boy. He had been accus- 
tomed to scenes of wretchedness and misery, 
but he had never seen anything like this before. 
The room was without furniture. In one corner 
lay the father and mother of the dying boy, 
shamefully drunk. In the opposite corner lay 
the little boy on a heap of rags. He went and 
stood over him, and said, tenderly, " Shall I send 
for a doctor?" 

He said, u O no, Cap; it is not that." 

" Shall I send for a nurse to get you a nice 
clean bed, and have you made comfortable?" 



302 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

"No, Cap; it is not that." 
"What is it, my dear boy?" 
"Did not you tell me that Jesus died to save 
sinners?" 

"Yes, my boy, I did." 

"Did not you tell me that he was willing to 
receive all that would come to him?" 
"Yes, my boy, I did." 

Then extending his emaciated hand still 
further, and making an effort to get up on his 
elbow, he said: 

"And is he willing to receive me?" 

"Yes, my boy, he is." 

"Then he has received me," and the hand 
fell, and he dropped back upon his heap of rags, 
dead. 

The dying testimony of that poor, wretched 
boy, brought up amid such surroundings, with 
a drunken father and drunken mother, was a 
sufficient reward for a lifetime spent in working 
for Jesus. O what glorious fields some of you 
have, who are working in the Sunday-school, 
and in rescue-work, or have opportunity of any 
kind to seek out your neighbor who is not a 
Christian, and bring to him the glorious knowl- 
edge of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



XX. 



THE UNWRITTEN STORY OF ARCHIPPUS. 



"And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which 
thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfill it." — Coi,os- 
Sians iv, 17. 



WENTY-FIVE words will cover all that has 



come down to our time concerning Archippus. 
We do not know, therefore, much about him. In 
his letter to Philemon, Paul calls him a fellow- 
soldier, and all the rest we know about him is in 
our text. He w T as probably a preacher. Whether 
he was eloquent or not, we are not informed; 
whether he was successful in winning souls or 
not, we have not been told. We know nothing 
about the details of his family life. All we know 
is that he had enlisted in the Christian war as a 
fellow-soldier for Christ with Paul, and that Paul 
found it necessary to spur him up to the full 
measure of his duty by sending this very plain, 
direct, and heart-searching message to him in 
his letter to the Colossians. One would suspect 
from this message that Archippus was a man 
who was in no great danger of overworking him- 




permanently enough to 



304 Heavenly Trade -winds. 



self; a man, possibly, of considerable gifts and 
promise, who was likely to fail to do his best 
through lack of earnestness and devotion ; a man 
whom Paul feared to be a little lazy about his 
work; or, it may be, his mind was taken up with 
side issues, and Paul feared that the great work 
which constituted the chief ministry of his life 
was going to suffer thereby. Anyhow, Paul, who 
was a busy man, and in the habit of coming di- 
rectly to the point, sends him this center shot, 
which I can imagine coming to him like the 
bursting of a shell in the ears of a rather di.a.ory 
and absent-minded soldier: " Say to Archippus, 
Take heed to the ministry which thou hast re- 
ceived in the Lord, that thou fulfill it." 

It seems to me there is a good message for us 
in this suggestive little note to Archippus. The 
first thought suggested by it is, that life is a min- 
istry. It is not an idle voyage. We are not 
painted ships on a painted ocean, but we have 
set sail with a definite and distinct purpose. It 
is of great importance that we have this high 
conception of life. Too many people simply 
drift upon the scene without any definite haven, 
and with no especial care or sense of responsi- 
bility as to the cargo they carry. Only disaster 
can come from such an attitude toward life. 



Unwritten Story of Archippus. 305 

I remember once to have stood at the mouth 
of the Umpqua River in Southern Oregon, where 
it enters the Pacific Ocean, and looked for many 
miles up the long, sandy beach north of the 
mouth of the river. It was covered with tens of 
thousands of great and splendid trees. It seemed 
to be a point to which the currents of the sea 
naturally carried the driftwood coming over a 
large section of the surrounding ocean. There 
were many kinds of trees there — great redwoods 
and pines and hemlock and spruce, and many 
others from many countries. They had drifted 
up on the sand at high-tide, and after a little 
had become imbedded, and remained until, as 
the centuries went on, they were covered over by 
the sand, and still other great trees were drifted 
above them. As I looked over the miles of 
stranded driftwood, I said to myself : " How dif- 
ferent the fate of these trees from others that 
grew near them IV Doubtless along the coasts 
in the great forests where these trees stood, many 
other trees were felled by the lumbermen, and 
rafted away to the great mills, and cut into lum- 
ber, some of which went into the building of 
great ships, or splendid ocean steamers, that after- 
wards went out to defy the wind and wave on 
every ocean. They became a part of the com- 



306 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



mercial life of the world, and carried passengers 
and cargo safely through dark nights of storm, 
and brought them at last to the safe harbor. 

But these trees lying on the beach were up- 
rooted in some great storm, or in some flood of 
the river by which they grew, and were ruth- 
lessly carried out to sea. There they were at the 
mercy of wind and wave, of every current that 
swept the surface of the sea. They were with- 
out compass or wheel or chart or pilot ; they 
were simply driftwood ; and, after long and help- 
less drifting, were stranded on the sands to rot. 
I said to myself, how often is this duplicated in 
human life ! Two young men grow up in the 
same home ; have the same nurturing circum- 
stances surrounding their lives ; give the same 
promise in childhood and youth ; but after awhile 
one is builded into the life of the world, enters 
with definite purpose and plan into its work, fills 
life to the full measure with sincere and earnest 
ministry ; but the other, by some flood of appe- 
tite or passion, is swept out to sea, is the prey of 
every wind and current and tide for a time, and 
at last drifts toward the sand-bar and is beached 
for eternity. 

This conception of life as a divinely-granted 



Unwritten Story of Archippus. 307 

ministry brings with it suggestions of a glorious 
fellowship. First of all with Him who was the 
great Minister. 

One of Tennyson's visitors once ventured to 
ask him what he thought of Jesus Christ. They 
were walking in the garden, and, for a minute, 
Tennyson said nothing ; then he stopped by 
some beautiful flower. " What the sun is to that 
flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul ; he is the sun 
of my soul." 

If we make life a ministry divinely granted us 
from heaven, it brings us into an inspiring fel- 
lowship with Jesus Christ, and our lives unfold 
with a beauty and a fragrance unknown before. 
The heaviest and most unrom antic toil is covered 
with a joy, and full of inspiration, when once we 
have entered into that spirit of ministry. There 
is perhaps no toil that is more absolutely 
drudgery than that of drawing water from wells 
in dry countries; and yet the sacred historian 
tells of a certain time in the history of Israel, 
during their wanderings in the wilderness, when 
they were so full of hope and courage that the 
men who drew water had a song that they sung 
back to the well, as sailors sing when they are 
hoisting their sails. 



308 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



You may find it over in Numbers — a Song of 
the Well. " Then sang Israel this song: 

is Spring up, O well ; sing ye unto it : 
The well which the princes digged, 
Which the nobles of the people delved, 
With the scepter and with their staves." ' 

How different would have been the history of 
the Israelites if they had always lived in that 
spirit ! Forty days, instead of forty years, would 
have sufficed to cross the desert between the 
land of bondage and the Canaan of which they 
dreamed. 

To give our best always, as Christ did — heaven 
coming down to the very poorest of earth — that 
is the spirit which glorifies ministration. 

A wealthy lady, young and beautiful, who had 
lately experienced genuine conversion, was so 
overflowing with love for the Savior that she 
went to visit a certain prison. One day, before 
starting on this errand of mercy, she went to her 
conservatory, and her gardener gathered her a 
large box of flowers, and was about to tie it up 
for her, when she noticed a perfect white rose 
untouched, and asked that it be added. 

" O no," he said; " please keep that for your- 
self to wear to-night." 

" I need it more just now," she said, and took 



Unwritten Story of Archippus. 309 

it with her on her journey. Reaching the prison, 
she commenced her rounds among the women's 
wards, giving a few blossoms to each inmate 
with a leaflet or a verse of Scripture, and every- 
where a message of sympathy and Christian 
hope. 

" Have I seen all the prisoners here?" she 
asked the jailer. 

"No; there is one you can not visit. Her 
language is so wicked it would scorch your ears 
to hear it." 

" She is the one who most needs me," she an- 
swered. " I have one flower; the choicest of all 
I brought. Can you not take me to her?" 

When she came up to the grated door, the 
wretched woman inside greeted her with bitter 
curses ; but the only reply she gave w T as the beau- 
tiful white rose, which was left in the woman's 
cell. As she turned away she heard one heart- 
breaking cry, and the voice which had been mut- 
tering curses moaned over and over again the 
one word : " Mother ! mother! mother!" 

When she came again the next week, the 
jailer met her saying: " That woman you saw 
last is asking for you constantly. I never saw a 
woman so changed." 

She went to the cell, and, instead of curses, 



3io Heavenly Trade-winds. 



she was met with a cry of delight; and soon the 
head of the penitent woman was resting on the 
shoulder of her new-found friend, sobbing out 
her sad story : 

" That white rose was just like one which 
grew by our door at home in Scotland — my 
mother's favorite flower. She was a good woman. 
My father's character was stainless; but I broke 
their hearts by my wicked ways ; then drifted to 
America, where I have lived a wicked life. Is 
there any hope for me?" That was the begin, 
ning of a new life, which was to be of blessing to 
others. The young woman had made no mis- 
take when she saved the best to minister to the 
worst. 

We have also suggested, in our study this 
morning, the individual ministry of our lives 
Archippus had a ministry of his own. Paul says . 
" Say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry 
which thou hast received." How much is lost 
because we are not faithful to our individual 
ministry ! 

A few years ago a party of tourists through 
the mountains in North Carolina stopped for a 
few days at the picturesque village of Waynes- 
burg. While they were climbing one of the 
mountains near the town, they met a young girl 



Unwritten Story of Archippus. 311 

driving some cows to pasture. She had a beau- 
tiful head and noble figure, which her dress, a 
short, blue flannel gown and a white handker- 
chief knotted at her throat, set off. Her hair 
was twisted in a smooth coil at the nape of her 
neck. 

The artist of the party exclaimed with delight : 
" Come to-morrow, just as you are," he begged, 
" and I will make a picture of you !" 

The girl promised, well pleased at the invita- 
tion ; but the next day, when she appeared, the 
artist found, to his horror, that she wore a tawdry 
print gown, looped and bedizened with bows, in 
an attempt at imitation of the dresses of the 
ladies of his own party. Her hair was cut in a 
bang, puffed and frizzed. Upon her hands were 
a pair of soiled gloves. She even attempted to 
mince as she walked. All the grace of her free 
carriage, learned in climbing the mountain passes 
with the freedom of a wild deer, was gone. She 
was a ridiculous burlesque of a fine lady of the 
town. 

So just in proportion as we forsake our own 
natural part in life, and undertake to copy 
others whose duties are different from our own, 
we utterly fail to fill the place which God has 
designed for us. 



312 



He a venl y Trade - winds. 



There is, as one has well said, a spurious in- 
dividualism which is a disease of our own time ; 
an attempt simply to be odd and different in 
little ways from our neighbors. Thus the drum- 
major, who marches at the head of the regiment, 
is often the most prominent figure in the passing 
column; but he may not render as valuable 
service as the man who carries a pail of water at 
the rear to refresh the wearied and the suffering. 

" 'T is a call for holy service 

Which is borne on ever}* breeze ; 
"X is a call to self-denial, 

'X is a call from worldly ease.'' 

This genuine conception of our individuality 

will lead us to do the real service which it is 

possible for us to do, and which no one else can 

do. To have such a sense of individuality we 

must recognize, as Paul did about Archippus, 

that we personally have a ministry of our own, 

which has been committed to us. Tennyson 

must have had a vision of this when he sang his 

immortal couplet: 

" Our wills are ours, we know not how; 
Our wills are ours to make them Xhine !" 

The greatest deeds of our human life are per- 
formed by men and women who have thus con- 
secrated their individual gifts and talents to the 
Divine leadership, and who never think of fail- 



Unwritten Story of Archippus. 313 



ure, but take up the duty of their life as if it 
were ordained of God, as it is. 

That is a striking illustration which Professor 
Drummond relates about a Glasgow boy, who 
-was an apprentice to a telegraph lineman. One 
day this boy was up on the top of a four-story 
house, with a number of men, fixing up a tele- 
graph-wire. The work was all but done, it was 
getting late, and the men said they were going 
away home; and the boy was left to nip off the 
ends of the wire. Before going down they told 
him to be sure to go back to the workshop, when 
he had finished, with his master's tools. The 
boy climbed up the pole, and began to nip off 
the ends of the wire. He lost his hold, and fell 
upon the slates; slid down, and then over in the 
air, down almost to the ground. A clothes-line, 
stretched across the yard, caught him on the 
chest, and broke his fall; but the shock was ter- 
rible, and he lay unconscious among some clothes 
on the ground. An old woman came out; see- 
ing her rope broken, and the clothes all soiled, 
she thought the boy was drunk; shook him, 
scolded him, and went for the policeman. In 
the meantime, with the shaking, he came back 
to consciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got upon 

his feet. What do you think he did? He stag- 

21 



3H 



He a venl y Trade-winds. 



gered, half-blind, to the ladder; he got on the 
roof of the house; he gathered up his tools, put 
them into his basket, took them down, and when 
he got to the ground fainted dead away. Just 
then the policeman came, saw there was some- 
thing wrong, and instead of taking him to jail, 
as he would have done if he had been a Tam- 
many policeman, took him to an infirmary, 
where, after weeks of suffering, he recovered. 

Think of the sublime consecration of the boy 
to his work, which made him, in that terrible 
moment, think only of his duty! He was think- 
ing, not of himself, but of his master. That is 
what we want as Christians — a sublime conse- 
cration of ourselves to the duty that waits at our 
hand for us. How it simplifies matters when 
we are ready to do the very next duty which 
waits at our hand! 

" Many a questioning, 

Many a fear, 
Many a doubt, 

Hath its quieting here. 
Moment by moment — 

Let down from heaven — 
Time, opportunity, 

Guidance, are given. 
Fear not to-morrows, 

Child of the King ; 
Trust them with Jesus, — 

1 Do the next thing.' 



Unwritten Story of Archippus. 



O, He would have thee 

Daily more free, 
Knowing the might 

Of thy royal degree ; 
Ever in waiting, 

Glad for his call ; 
Tranquil in chastening, 

Trusting through all. 
Comings and goings 

No turmoil may bring ; 
His all thy future, — 

' Do the next thing.' 

Do it immediately, 

Do it with prayer ; 
Do it reliantly, 

Casting all care ; 
Do it with reverence, 

Tracing His hand 
Who hath placed it before thee 

With earnest command. 
Stayed on Omnipotence, 

Safe 'neath his wing, 
Leave all resultings, — 

1 Do the next thing.' 

Looking to Jesus, 

Ever serener — 
W 7 orking or suffering — 

Be thy demeanor. 
In the shade of his presence, 

The rest of his calm, 
The light of his countenance, 

Live out thy psalm. 
Strong in his faithfulness, 

Praise him and sing ; 
Then, as he beckons thee, 

' Do the next thing.' " 



3i6 



He a vexl y Trade - winds. 



How such a conception of life as a divinely- 
ordered ministry puts to shame that contempt- 
ible thought of the Christian faith as a sort 01 
legal insurance policy against personal danger 
in the world to come ! When we think of life 
as a divinely-planned ministry, it becomes a glo- 
rious program for this world, graduating into the 
paradise beyond as naturally as Commencement- 
day, with its honors, follows the years of work 
and study and enjoyment in college. Such a 
life must get richer as it goes on; and that, 
surely, is God's plan for us. 

Dr. Thwing aptly says that lengthening life 
should have larger treasure in itself, and con- 
stantly larger treasure in other lives. Life 
should be, in its onward progress, like the 
growth of a great river. The river loses the 
swiftness and the dash and roar of its mountain 
origin. It loses the narrowness of its early 
rugged channels: but it ^ains in breadth, and its 
depth becomes more deep and more calm. It 
comes into relations with the great ocean be- 
yond, and bears the commerce of the world on 
its hospitable bosom. So our lives, as they sweep 
onward, may lose somewhat of their swiftness of 
action, their impetuosity of feeling, and their 
rush of influence and tendency; but if we are 



Unwritten Story of Archippus. 317 

true to the ministry which God has committed 
to us, we shall be more than compensated for 
the loss of these in the widening of our fellow- 
ships, in the deepening spiritual life, and in the 
consciousness that we bear on the bosom of our 
being an increasing fleet of rich cargoes that be- 
long to infinite space and endless time. We 
may know 7 more of the shadows of earth as we 
go on, but we will have mirrored in our hearts 
more of the images of heaven. 

One other thought which we must not close 
without noting, and that is, the exhortation Paul 
sends to Archippus that he shall fulfill his min- 
istry. You get the real meaning of that word 
better if you turn it around, and let it read like 
this: "Say to Archippus, Take heed to the min- 
istry which thou hast received in the Lord, that 
thou fill it full." That is the real meaning of 
it — to fill one's measure of privilege up to 
the brim. 

We slander our Christianity when we let the 
world feel that we are all the time hankering 
after the flesh-pots of Egypt, when w r e enter so 
little into the spirit of Christ that we depend 
upon the pleasure and ambition of the world for 
our joy and our happiness. The Christian re- 
ligion is not something which fences a man in, 



3i8 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



fencing out the joy and inspiration of life; but 
it is rather that which sets him free, which 
causes the horizon to lift, which gives him a 
wider vision, a deeper joy, and a holier inspira- 
tion than can be found in the world. Many 
Christians do not work enough at the ministry 
that God gives them to acquire a real taste for 
the joys of the soul. 

One day at lunch a little boy laid down his 
spoon, and said: "I don't like this soup. It is 
not good." 

" Very well, then," said his wise mother, "you 
need not eat it." 

That afternoon the little boy had to go with 
his father to weed the garden. It was very warm, 
and they worked until supper-time. Then they 
went into the house, and the mother brought the 
boy a plate of soup. 

" That's good soup, mother," he said; and he 
ate it to the last drop. 

"It's the very same soup you left at dinner 
to-day. It tastes better now because you earned 
your supper." 

" A dinner earned by honest labor 
Will never want a pleasant flavor." 

Given a Church overflowing with devotion 
and hard work for the Master, and you will have 



Unwritten Story of Ar chirp us. 319 

a Church full of appetite and zest for spiritual 
joys, that will know what Billy Bray, the con- 
verted Cornish miner, meant when, in response 
to the people of his Church, who threatened if 
he did not quit praising God so much in the 
meetings they would shut him up in a barrel, 
he replied: u Then I'll praise the Lord through 
the bung-hole !" 

Phillips Brooks said he once asked Bishop 
Huntington, "What do you think is the next 
thing our Church ought to do?" and he re- 
plied: u To live up to its manifesto." That is 
what we want, all of us — to live up to our mani- 
festo — a full, rich, overflowing life, that will run 
over in benediction into all the lives about. A 
man who went camping in the Northern woods 
last summer, said he found a huge old hard-maple 
tree w T hich was very interesting to him. In the 
first place, a woodchuck had made a sort of 
Gibraltar between two of its strong roots, and 
one could see where the wolves had been gnaw- 
ing at them, trying to get at him. Farther up, 
a family of squirrels had an airy residence in 
one of the great limbs. In the very topmost 
crotch there was a crow's-nest, which had been 
improved from year to year, until one no sooner 
looked at the tree than he saw the bunch of 



320 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



sticks and leaves. Then, as he examined it 
more closely, he found the scars nearly grown 
over, which showed where the trapper or some 
old Indian had tapped it, for its sweet syrup, 
in the spring-time. But the old maple seemed 
to rejoice in all this hospitality, and, though 
very old, its mantle of green sheltered the young 
crows and the young squirrels and the young 
woodchucks, and did not seem to miss the sweet 
syrup which had gone to feed the young Indian 
in some distant wigwam. 

The psalmist says that we who are the trees 
of the Lord shall be full of sap, ministering to 
others, opening our hearts to those who need, 
spreading our branches out in the sunshine of 
God's providence, gathering sweetness and ver- 
dure and beauty, until our life is not only full, 
but overflowing, so that every timid, hungering, 
needy soul may find there a refuge and sympathy 
and comfort and life. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AND HIS POEMS 
OF THE SOUL. 



" Who prophesied with a harp." — i Chronicles xxv, 3. 

IT is such a one as that whom we are come to 
study to-night. A kindly, gentle prophet, like 
Elisha rather than Elijah — one who had other 
ways of prophesying than the harp ; but it is the 
music of that harp to which we prefer to listen 
this evening. The first characteristic of that 
music is its simple goodness. It is always clean 
and wholesome. No man's writing was more 
naturally and simply the bubbling over of the 
man's inner self than that of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, whether in poetry or prose. What a 
great thing it has been for public righteousness 
in this country that our great poets, such as 
Longfellow, Lowell, Bryant, Emerson, Whittier, 
and Holmes, have all been men of pure, holy 
character — men true and loving to their brother 
man, and bowing reverently to the laws of God — 
men whose lives were as pure and sweet and 
fragrant of goodness as the noble songs they 
sang. 

321 



322 HE AVE XL Y TRADE -WINDS* 



Of Holmes, we might use the words he wrote 
for his friend, Francis Parkman, the historian, 

only a few months ago : 

11 A brave, bright memory. His the stainless shield 
No shame defaces and no envy mars ; 
When our far future's record is unsealed, 

His name will shine among its morning stars/' 

His belief in the protecting power of good- 
ness, in the bullet-proof armor of duty, was as 
strong as Emerson's. Speaking of it, he ex- 
claims : "A charmed life Old Goodness hath." 
In his poem entitled " Sun and Shadow, " which 
is one of his best, he sets forth very clearly his 
vivid conception of the value of doing one's duty 
without regard to the world which is looking on : 

"As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green. 

To the billows of foam-crested blue. 
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen. 

Half-dreaming, my eyes will pursue ; 
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray 

As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; 
Now white as the seagull, she flies on her way. 

The sun gleaming bright on her sail. 

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun, 

Of breakers that whiten and roar ; 
How little he cares if, in shadow or sun. 

They see him who gaze from the shore ! 
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, 

To the rock that is under his lea. 
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, 

O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. 



Holmes 's Poems of the Soul. 



323 



Thus drifting afar to the dim- vaulted caves. 

Where life and its ventures are laid, 
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves 

May see us in sunshine or shade ; 
Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark, 

We "11 trim our broad sails as before, 
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, 

Xor ask how we look from the shore !" 

Dr. Holmes was an optimist who believed, 
with Paul, that evil was no match, in the long 
run, for the good. An editorial writer, summing 
up his place in literature, aptly says that there 
was about all his writings, whether prose or 
poetry, a dauntless cheer. He knew the world 
as it is ; he saw everything ; and he was neither 
dismayed nor saddened. At all times, and under 
all circumstances, he spoke for the nobility that 
is in man, and the spiritual grandeur to which 
man is naturally destined ; and his voice and pen 
always rang out clearly and bravely the inspiring 
watchwords of labor and hope. Whether in 
essay or novel or poem or history or public 
speech, this optimistic spirit, this indomitable 
will, which he describes in one of his poems as 

" Genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck," 
was always present, and thus, while dispensing 
the force and beauty of thought and the gentle 
light of humor, he infused into the hearts of all 
hearers or readers the blessing of his own splen- 



324 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



did courage. No one can read the words of 
Holmes without receiving a constant impulse 
toward the straightforward, cheerful performance 
of duty, without being buoyed up in an unques- 
tioned faith in the final reign of righteousness. 
In his cheerful faith, as in Paul's, " all things 
work together for good to them that love God." 
In a tribute to Harriet Beecher Stowe, for her 
great service in behalf of liberty, he sings : 

"Sister, the holy maid does well 
Who counts her beads in convent cell, 

Where pale devotion lingers ; 
But she who serves the sufferer's needs, 
Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds, 
May trust the Lord will count her beads, 

As well as human fingers." 

To his clear-eyed optimism there were many 
failures in the world's sight who were crowned 
victors in the higher justice of heaven. Nothing 
could be sweeter than his poem entitled " The 
Voiceless/' which ought to comfort any heart 
that has toiled without appreciation : 

u We count the broken lyres that rest 

Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, 
But o'er their silent sister's breast 

The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? 
A few can touch the magic string, 

And noisy Fame is proud to win them ; 
Alas, for those that never sing, 

But die with[all their music in them ! 



Holmes's Poems of the Soul. 325 



Nay, grieve not for the dead alone 

Whose song has told their heart's sad story, — 
Weep for the voiceless, who have known 

The cross without the crown of glory ! 
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep 

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, 
But where the glistening night-dews weep 

On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 

O hearts that break and give no sign 

Save whitening lip and fading tresses, 
Till Death pours out his longed-for wine. 

Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses, — 
If singing breath or echoing chord 

To every hidden pang were given. 
What endless melodies were poured, 

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven !" 

Dr. Holmes was a beautiful illustration of the 
possibility of following out the Scriptural injunc- 
tion of " speaking the truth in love." Xo man 
of his age had learned more perfectly the art — if 
indeed it was an art, for it seemed to be first na- 
ture with him — of rebuking error and folly, yet 
all the while maintaining the sweetest and most 
loving of tempers. He seldom, if ever, reaches 
the intense and sublime moral earnestness of 
James Russell Lowell in his warfare against 
wrong, and rarely reaches the high spirtual alti- 
tude that was such an easy climb for Whittier ; 
yet he did speak the truth, and spoke it with 
more love and kindliness than either of them. In 



326 



Heavenly Trade -winds. 



war time, on a Fourth of July, he uttered this 
splendid paragraph : 

" Whether we know it or not, whether we 
mean it or not, we can not help fighting against 
the system that has proved the source of all 
those miseries which the author of the Declara- 
tion of Independence trembled to anticipate, and 
this ought to make us willing to do and to suffer 
cheerfully. There were holy wars of old, in 
which it was glory enough to die ; wars in which 
the one aim was to rescue the sepulcher of Christ 
from the hands of infidels. The sepulcher of 
Christ is not in Palestine ! He rose from that 
burial-place more than eighteen hundred years 
ago. He is crucified wherever his brothers are 
slain without cause ; he lies buried wherever 
man, made in his Maker's image, is entombed in 
ignorance lest he should learn the rights which 
his divine Master gave him ! This is our holy 
war." 

Neither Lowell nor Whittier ever said any- 
thing with a truer ring for freedom than that; 
and more than that, he gave his only son, who 
went to the front for years, and nearly lost his 
life for liberty ; and yet his kind heart made it 
to him always a war against the system of 



Holmes's Poems of the Soul. 327 



slavery, and not against his brothers. He well 
says : 

" Grieve as thou must o'er history 's reeking page ; 
Blush for the wrong that stains thy happier age ; 
Strive with the wanderer from the. better path, 
Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath ; 
Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, 
Have thine own faith, — but hope and pray for all !" 

It was in the same spirit that he wrote 
" Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caro- 
line," on the secession of the Carolinas from the 
Union : 

11 O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, 
We can never forget that our hearts have been one, — 
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, 
From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame." 

And he extends the olive-branch in these tender 
and hospitable lines : 

" But when 3 our heart aches, and your feet have grown sore 
Remember the pathway that leads to our door !" 

Oliver Wendell Holmes believed in the di- 
vine mission of joy. He believed that his gift 
of mirth was from God, and gave it a free rein. 
Once he wrote : 

"If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, 

Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came ; 
If hand of mine another's task has lightened, 
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim." 



328 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

As a joy-bringer, this happy-tempered poet has 
been a great blessing to the world. Some one 
not long ago said that Dr. Holmes's life was orig- 
inally devoted to the practice of medicine, and 
his pleasure was to alleviate the ills of the body ; 
but his broad sympathy for his fellows led him 
to his true mission, when, from a healer of bodily 
disease, he became the inexhaustible singer of 
mental health and good cheer. Other physicians 
may have done more to assuage pain, but no 
other " medicine man" of our time has shown 
such a faculty of radiating joy. 

What a delightful thing it must have been to 
Dr. Holmes to look back over his long and fruit- 
ful life, and find scarcely a line of prose or poetry 
which he had written that contains the slightest 
bitterness or ill-feeling. As one says, he dipped 
his keen-pointed pen often in the honey-dew, but 
never in gall and wormwood. He set the world 
to laughing and to loving ; to laughing at legiti- 
mate objects of laughter, and to loving the true, 
the beautiful, and the good. 

Yet in him, as in nature, the tear was always 
close to the smile. That poem of " The Last 
Leaf," which has set all the world laughing 
through two generations, has yet in it a verse 
which Abraham Lincoln declared to be the purest 



Holmes's Poems of the Soul. 329 



specimen of pathos in the English language — 
the stanza which, speaking of the old man, says : 

"The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom ; 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 
On the tomb." 

And surely nothing is so full alike of pathos, 
sympathy and faith, as the lines written on the 
death of Martha, his washerwoman : 

" Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone ; 

Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 
Her weary hands their labor cease ; 
Good- night, poor Martha, sleep in peace ! 
Toll the bell! 

Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone ; 

Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 
She '11 bring no more, by day or night, 
Her basketful of linen white ! 

Toll the bell ! 

Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone ; 

Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 
Sleep, Martha, sleep, to wake in light, 
Where all the robes are stainless white. 

Toll the bell!" 

Such a man could not grow old in the ordi- 
nary acceptation of that term. All his years 
have been full of activity. The years came to 
him as to others, bringing the white hair, the 

wrinkled cheek, the stooping figure, and the 

22 



330 Heavenly Trade-winds. 



trembling hand, but they failed to destroy the 
fine edge on his joyous temper, or break down 
the strong optimism of his spirits. He lived up 
to Goethe's lofty command, " Keep true to the 
dreams of thy youth,' ' and so never lost the 
dauntless cheer of his boyhood. 

Dr. Henry M. Field says: "He was a man of 
robust conscience, like the race from which he 
sprung. His sense of duty was keen and vigor- 
ous, but it had none of that morbid self-con- 
sciousness which — with perhaps less of truth 
than they suppose — some of our latter-day 
writers attribute to the New England character. 
He helped his generation to do its work and 
bear its burdens; he saw all the bitterness, all 
the pathos, of our American life — the need of a 
larger tolerance, of a wider mercy; and he 
brought the wealth of cheerfulness, the rippling 
melody of mirth, the soft flash of humor, to play 
around the hard sides and sharp angles of our 
natural character, and molded it into something 
more human, more lovely, and more beautiful 
than it had been before. Free and fearless in 
his freedom of thought, he was never hampered 
by fear of criticism, and so he was always true to 
the best that was in him." 

Dr. Holmes had a young heart to the end of 



Holmes's Poems of the Soul. 331 



his life. On the occasion of his last birthday, 
only six weeks ago, in speaking of his age, he 
said: "The burden of years sits lightly upon 
me, as compared to the weight it seems to many 
less advanced in years than myself." The lone- 
liness of old age was, of course, felt by Dr. 
Holmes, as, one by one, the contemporaries of 
his youth dropped away; but he was so fresh- 
hearted and so sunny-tempered that the number 
of his years was never allowed to stand between 
him and the throbbing heart of human kind. 
As wrote his friend and fellow-poet, William 
Winter, in his tribute to the veteran who has left 
us at eighty-five, and was then, to use his sug- 
gestive phrase, " seventy years young:" 

" When violets fade, the roses blow ; 

When laughter dies, the passions wake ; 
His royal song, that slept below. 

Like Arthur's sword beneath the lake, 
Long since has flashed its fiery glow 
O'er all we know. 

The silken tress, the mantling vine, 
Red roses, summer's whispering leaves, 

The lips that kiss, the hands that twine, 

The heart that loves, the heart that grieves, — 

They all have found a deathless shrine 
In his rich line !" 

But it is well for us to remember that his 
glorious old age was a natural evolution. The 



332 



Heavenly Trade-winds, 



secret of his noble career is open to our gaze in 
the poem which, of all he had written, was his 
favorite, and will probably outlive all the others, 
" The Chambered Nautilus." Holding the cham- 
bered shell in his hand, whose separate walls, 
as the lines of a tree, mark its age, the poet 
meditates : 

" This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign 

Sails the unshadowed main ; 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings, 
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare ; 
Where the cold sea-maids rise, to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ; 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed. 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the last year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in its last-found home, and knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 
Child of the wandering sea, 
Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 



Holmes's Poems oe the Soul. 333 

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn. 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought, I hear a voice that sings : 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, — 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!" 

One can not read that last verse without re- 
membering the splendid ambition of Paul, as 
expressed in his Letter to the Philippians: "Xot 
as though I had already attained, either were al- 
ready perfect: but I follow after, if that I may 
apprehend that for which also I am apprehended 
of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself 
to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, 
forgetting those things which are behind, and 
reaching forth unto those things which are be- 
fore, I press toward the mark for the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. " A 
noble life will naturally grow out of such an 
ambition. It is the natural fruit of such an 
ideal. 

Remember that to be a glorious old man, 
one must begin young. It is on the hilltops of 
boyhood where the current of life gets its trend. 



334 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

Dr. Holmes himself sings of the "Two Streams " 
that tell of life's early choice of an ideal: 

" Behold the rocky wall 
That down its sloping sides 
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, 
In rushing river-tides ! 

Yon stream, whose sources run, 
Turned by a pebble's edge, 
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun 

Through the cleft mountain-ledge ; 

The slender rill had strayed, 
But for the slanting stone, 
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid 
Of foam-flecked Oregon. 

So from the heights of Will 
Life's parting stream descends, 
And, as a moment turns its slender rill, 
Each widening torrent bends — 

From the same cradle's side, 
From the same mother's knee — 
One to long darkness and the frozen tide ; 
One to the Peaceful Sea!" 



XXII. 



MAKING A FEAST FOR HEAVENLY VISITORS. 

"And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of 
Mamre : and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day ; 
and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men 
stood by him ; and when he saw them, he ran to meet 
them." — Genesis xyiii, i, 2. 

THERE is an interesting background to this 
picture, — the wide - reaching plains of 
Mamre, stretching far off over that great rich 
pasture, so well w r atered that Lot had dared to 
risk his soul in order to have it for his flocks. It 
is a hot day, and it is high noon. The only at- 
tractive spot in the immediate vision is a little 
group of great oak-trees, under the shade of 
which Abraham, the friend of God, has erected 
his tent and the many tents of. his followers. 
Sitting in the door of the tent, that he may catch 
every breath of refreshing breeze, is the splendid 
figure of Abraham, with his long, white, patri- 
archal beard. He has a turban on his head, and 
sandals on his feet, and is a veritable picture out 
of the old wonder-book of the East. It is very 
hot. The birds are hidden away among the 
thick branches of the trees; every living thing, 



336 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



unless it be some cold-blooded lizard or sluggish 
snake, seeks some place of shade and rest. It is 
that time of the day which, in a tropical land, 
is as still and quiet as the midnight. x\braham 
sits there, in his great tent door under the spread- 
ing branches of the big oak, dreamy and half- 
asleep, when he is suddenly aroused, and becomes 
brightly awake at the apparition of three strange 
visitors. Although their abrupt appearance is 
remarkable, he does not at first know that they 
are from heaven, but supposes they are three 
brother-men, weary with travel. When he sees 
them approaching, he springs to his feet like a 
boy, and runs to meet them, and bows himself 
to the ground, and begs that they will not pass 
by, but stay and permit him to entertain them. 
Water is brought to wash their feet. They are 
given a good, shady, cool place under the trees. 
Fresh bread is baked, and Abraham gets Sarah 
herself to looking after the fresh cakes as they 
baked upon the hearth; and, to show special 
honor to his guests, he, despite the heat of the 
day, goes out to the herd and fetches a calf, ten- 
der and good, and gives it to a servant, with or- 
ders to hurry the dressing of it. And when it is 
prepared, instead of calling one of his servants 
to serve his guests, this splendid old prince him- 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 337 



self takes the fresh cakes from Sarah's hands, 
and butter and milk, and the calf, fresh roasted 
over the coals, and sets it before them, and stands 
by them under the tree, and serves them while 
they eat. 

Now, Abraham did all this while he thought 
they were men, simply his brother-men. I have 
called special attention to this, because it is 
through our brother-men that we find God. That 
is the way Abraham found him, and that is the 
way we must find him. As John writes: "He 
that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and 
there is none occasion of stumbling in him;" 
and again, "We know that we have passed from 
death unto life, because we love the brethren 
and again, "If a man say, I love God, and 
hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth 
not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he 
love God w T hom he hath not seen?" There can 
be no conception of God as our Father without 
a tender and reverent conception of man as our 
brother. 

Olive Schreiner, one of the bright literary 
women of our own epoch, dreamed a dream, and 
wrote it. She says: "I dreamed I saw a land, 
and on the hills walked brave women and brave 
men, hand in hand; and they looked into each 



338 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



other's eyes, and were not afraid. And I saw 
the women also hold each other's hands. 

"And I said to him beside me: 'What place 
is this?' 

"And he said: 'This is heaven/ 
"I said: 'Where is it? 1 
"He said: 'On earth.' 

"And I said: k When shall these things be?' 

"And he answered: ' In the future.' " 

May God haste the time when Christ's leaven 
of brotherliness shall have so permeated the 
heart of all mankind that this dream may be- 
come the present reality ! 

We may be thankful that, abundant as the 
evidence of sin is, and fiendish as some of its 
shouts of victory are now and again, still more 
abundant is the evidence that faith in the Brother- 
hood of Jesus Christ is permeating the heart of 
all modern life, and expressing itself in ten thou- 
sand ways. Every new college which is en- 
dowed; every Home that is built for the desti- 
tute; every public library that is thrown open to 
the multitude; every Home built for the aged; 
every gallery of pictures, adorned with beauty, for 
the eyes of the poor; every church-spire that 
towers heavenward, indicating the heavenly sym- 
pathy and brotherhood beneath, — indeed, every 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 339 



institution and society and heart-throb of brother- 
hood, by which the blind see, the deaf hear, the 
lame walk, and weary shoulders are relieved of 
their burdens, are indications of the w r orking of 
that leaven of the Christ-spirit in the hearts 
of men. 

How often this comes out in the little deeds 
that are performed without any thought of record 
or praise! A writer in a New York newspaper 
tells of a glimpse that was had of a kind act, the 
doer of which little suspected that she was no- 
ticed. Among the passengers on an elevated 
train was a sweet-faced young woman, dressed in 
fresh but not deep mourning, such as one might 
wear for a young child. At one of the stations 
another woman got on, carrying a baby. Both 
were cleanly but poorly dressed, the baby par- 
ticularly needing warmer garments than its ging- 
ham dress for the sharp air of the day. It wore 
no hat ; a little shawl pinned over its head served 
for a hat and cloak as well. 

The mother and her child were seated directly 
opposite the lady in black, whose gaze was riv- 
eted upon them. She watched the baby as it 
she could not take her eyes from it, and when a 
shifting of the passengers left a vacant seat on 
the side of the mother, she crossed and took it. 



34° Heavenly Trade-winds. 



" What a bright baby I" she said, leaning to- 
ward it. "How old is she?" with a soft smile 
at the pleased mother. 

The woman told her. 

" Ah," said the first speaker, " my baby was a 
month older ; but she was no larger." Then she 
bent down and smiled in the baby's eyes, letting 
its little hand clasp one of her gloved fingers. 
" There is a little coat and a warm cap," she 
said, speaking low and rapidly. " Will yon give 
me your address, and let me send them to you?" 

The woman scarcely caught the meaning. 

" Quick, please; I leave at the next station," 
urged the other, still playing with the baby. 

Hesitatingly, then, and flushing a little, an 
address was given. A low " Thank you," was 
the reply, and the train slowed up. 

The involuntary listener saw the black-robed 
figure pause a moment on the platform outside, 
and take up a tablet attached to her belt, evi- 
dently to write down the address. As she did 
so, a glimpse was had, too, of a silver cross, and 
a tiny knot of purple ribbon, which showed that 
it was in the name of the Brother, Christ, the 
dead baby's garments were offered. If that 
brotherly kindness should cover the world, this 
would be heaven indeed. Somebody has said 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 341 

that kindness is the turf of the spiritual life, on 
which Mrs. Bottome, writing to a friend, com- 
mented : "I trust, my dear, that your lawn will 
be very green. " May that prayer be answered 
for us all ! 

There is something else in this study which 
attracts me, I think, more than anything, and 
that is, that Abraham was the kind of man whom 
God and the angels could visit w 7 ith mutual 
pleasure and delight. Many another old Bedouin 
chief dwelt in that desert who never saw the 
angels except in dreams of torment, and never 
thought of God except with a shudder. Abraham 
lived at a lofty altitude of soul, where he could 
see God and talk with him face to face. Wher- 
ever he wandered in the desert he built an altar, 
and God appeared to him there. Not only so, 
but in the every-day affairs of his tent-life, God 
came to him as in the Scripture incident we are 
studying. Some one says there are outlooks 
which can only be gained from certain eleva- 
tions, and for a broad and just view one must 
reach the heights. No amount of will-power, 
imagination, conjecture, or laborious study can 
take the place of standing where one can see. 
To be a noble, pure soul, that is the condition of 
heavenly friendship and communion. 



342 



He a vexl y Trade - winds. 



''There has come to my mind a legend, a thing I had half 

forgot, 

And whether I read it or dreamed it, — ah, well, it matters not ! 
It is said that in heaven, at twilight, a great bell softly 
swings, 

And man may listen and hearken to the wondrous music 
that rings, 

If he puts from his heart's inner chamber all the passion, 

pain, and strife, 
Heartache and weary longing, that throb in the pulses 

of life ; 

If he thrust from his soul all hatred, all thoughts of wicked 
things, 

He can hear in the holy twilight how the bell of the angels 
rings. 

And I think there lies in this legend, if we open our eyes 

to see, 

Somewhat of an inner meaning, my friend, to you and to me. 
Let us look in our hearts and question : Can pure thoughts 
enter in 

To a soul if it be already the dwelling of thoughts of sin ?* 
So, then, let us ponder a little — let us look in our hearts 

and see 

If the twilight bell of the angels could ring for us — you 
and me." 

Some one, writing about Emerson, says that 
he had been so in the habit of seeing beauty, 
that through the chinks which the storms of old 
age made in his life-house, as the blasts of win- 
ter shook it, he looked out for and saw only the 
beautiful. When his memory had failed, only a 
little before his own dying, he turned away from 
looking on the dead face of his friend, Long- 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 



343 



fellow, and said to a friend who attended him : 
" That gentleman was a beautiful soul, but I 
have forgotten his name." 

The ever-young angel of beauty and purity 
stays with a soul who likes to look at the treas- 
ures she so loves to show him ; and when age 
comes, and every one else goes on the hunt for 
younger society, this spirit of beauty and holiness 
spends the long days and nights with him who 
has learned her secret, and caught her immortal 
youth. Be assured that no grace of culture, and 
no pride of success can finally and permanently, 
either in this world or any world, take the place 
of that rare perfume of goodness which comes 
from fellowship with Christ, from communion 
with God. Better a thousand times a career that 
is rugged and rude, bearing every trace of sorrow 
and trial and hardship, but fragrant with the 
fruits of the Spirit, than a life that is covered 
with luxury and ease and applause, yielding, after 
all, only the apples of Sodom. How clearly 
Mrs. Spofford sings this heart-searching truth : 

"There were two vases in the sun; 

A bit of common earthen-ware, 
A rude and shapeless jar was one ; 

The other — could a thing more fair 
Be made of clay? Blushed not so soft 

The almond blossoms in the light ; 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



A lily's stem was not so slight 
With lovely lines that lift aloft 

Pure grace and perfectness full-blown ; 
And not beneath the finger-tip 
So smooth, or pressed upon the lip,. 
The velvet petal of a rose ; 
Less fair were some great flower that blows 

In a king's garden, changed to stone ! 

Kings' gardens do not grow such flowers — 
In a dream-garden was it blown ; 

Fine fancies, in long sunny hours, 
Brought it to beauty all its own. 

With silent song its shape was wrought 
From dart of wing, from droop of spray 
From colors of the breaking day, 

Transfigured in a poet's thought. 
At last, the finished flower of art — 

The dream-flower on its slender stem — 

What fierce flames fused it to a gem ! 

A thousand times its weight in gold 

A prince paid ere its price was told, 
Then set it on a shelf apart. 

But through the market's gentle gloom, 

Crying his ever-fragrant oil, 
That should anoint the bride in bloom, 

That should the passing soul assoil, 
Later, the man with attar came, 

And tossed a penny down, and poured 

In the rude jar his precious hoard. 
What perfume, like a subtle flame, 

Went through its substance, happy-starred ! 
Whole roses into blossom leapt, 
Whole gardens in its warm heart slept ! 
Long afterward, thrown down in haste, 
The jar lay, shattered and made waste, 

But sweet to its remotest shard !" 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 345 

It is said that a flock of pigeons who have 
alighted in a field of lavender will carry away the 
sweet perfume on their wings. And so Abra- 
ham, dwelling in his desert, had had so many 
hours of heart-communion w r ith God that his life 
was full of peace, and fragrant with righteous- 
ness. If that was possible to Abraham in the 
desert, surely it is possible to us here and now in 
the latter days of the nineteenth century. As 
an enthusiastic saint says: " Let us stop parsing 
heaven in the future tense, and begin to sing its 
hallelujahs now !" 

If we shall do that, we shall find God appear- 
ing to us, as to Abraham, in many of the ordinary 
visitors of our lives. I was calling, only this 
w r eek, on a lady who told me about her husband's 
conversion when he was past middle-life. Their 
son had been very ill for a long time. He was a 
happy, Christian young man, and though he ex- 
pected that he would not live long, nothing gave 
him any sorrow save the fact that his father was 
not a Christian. One morning, as his father 
bade him good-bye to go to his work, he looked 
after him wistfully, and said: " Come home early 
to-night, father." Before the day had passed, the 
father was hastily telegraphed for, but ere he 
could reach his home his son had reached the 

2 3 



34<5 



Heavenly Trade-winds, 



home above. In the agony of his first grief he 
inquired what the last words of his son had 
been, and when they answered, " I should die 
content if only father were a Christian," his 
heart was broken, and he said : " God helping 
me, his prayer shall be answered, and I will 
meet him in heaven. " From that hour he has 
been striving earnestly to lead a Christian life. 
Thus his son was God manifest in the flesh to 
him. 

The story is told of some fishermen who went 
out for a sail, when a mist came on, and every- 
thing grew dim. It thickened into a fog, and 
after a little nothing could be seen but the edge 
of the water against the boat. " I 'd give a good 
deal to know where we are," said one of the men. 
Suddenly a far-off sound was heard. It was the 
custom in that fishing village, when fathers and 
sons were out in their boats, if the fog came on, 
for women and children to gather on the shore, 
and sing high and clear. They were doing it 
now. " Steer for the voices," said the owner of 
the boat to the man at the rudder. He did so, 
and they were saved. Some years ago a fisher- 
man was out in a fog all by himself. He was in 
danger of running on rocks, and began to think 
he must be lost. At length he heard the cry ot 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 347 

a small voice. He thought he knew it, and 
listened again. Then he heard clear, " Steer 
straight for me !" 

It was the voice of his little daughter. He 
called, and she replied again and again, " Steer 
straight !" 

He passed the rocks, stepped on the shore, 
and caught her in his arms. His little daughter 
had saved him. Some months afterward he lost 
her. All was dark in life now ; but after a time 
he remembered what she had said, " Steer 
straight for me, father !" and he turned the prow 
of his life-boat straight toward the heavenly 
shore. O, my brother, have you not had angelic 
visitors like that who are watching for you and 
waiting for you, and crying out across the dark- 
ness with words of love and tender entreaty, 
" Steer straight for me?" 

One can not close a study like this without re- 
membering that God, who was so often the guest 
of Abraham, has long since taken Abraham home, 
and for a long time Abraham has been the happy 
guest of God. Death to a man like Abraham 
could have had no gloom or sorrow. It need not 
have, my brother, to you. It will not have, if 
you give yourself in obedient, loving service 
to God. 



34* 



Heavenly Trade-winds. 



An incident is related by an army chaplain. 
The hospital tents, during the afternoon of a 
battle, had been filling up fast, as the wounded 
men were brought to the rear. Among the num- 
ber was a young man, mortally wounded, and 
not able to speak. The surgeons had been on 
their rounds of duty, and for a moment all was 
quiet. Suddenly this young man, before speech- 
less, called out, in a clear, distinct voice : " Here !" 
The surgeon hastened to his side, and asked 
what he wished. "Nothing," said he. "They 
are calling the roll in heaven, and I was an- 
swering to my name." He turned his head, and 
was gone — gone to join the army whose uniform 
is washed white in the blood of the Lamb. 
That is death to those who have in life the guid- 
ance of God, who, like Abraham, are only pil- 
grims on the earth, and look through all earth's 
clouds, and behold a city whose builder and 
maker is God. 

Brothers and sisters, it is the most blessed 
privilege that life has brought me that I am 
permitted, here and now, to offer you the loving 
friendship of Jesus Christ, who will guide you 
through every danger of life, and bring you safe 
at last into the haven of eternal rest. 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 349 

Dr. Hugh Brown tells how he once made the 
trip on a steamer down the St. Lawrence River 
through Lachine Rapids, where the waters dashed 
and plunged in wild yet fascinating fury, and the 
vessel shook and rocked like a cockle-shell upon 
the waves. His courage did not fail; for he had 
absolute confidence in the ability and wisdom of 
a stern old Indian, who for many years, day after 
day, had stood as pilot upon the bridge. After 
they had gotten into smooth water, and were 
dropping anchor at Montreal, a little girl ex- 
claimed, somewhat excitedly, to her mother: 
u Mamma, do you think the pilot would let me 
shake hands and thank him for having saved 
us from those awful waters ?" The parent, with 
a half-amused expression, responded that she 
supposed that great official would have no objec- 
tion; and so the little feet ran along until the 
little hand was suddenly pushed into that of the 
astonished old Indian, and a voice cried out: 
" Please, Mr. Pilot, I want to thank you for your 
kindness in bringing me and mamma and all of 
us safe through the angry rapids.' ' And as the 
great bronzed hand grasped hers, a tear of honest 
pleasure, followed by a smile of wondrous sweet- 
ness, played over the old Indian's gratified and 



350 Heavenly Trade-winds. 

astonished face, and amply rewarded the little 
artless maiden. Tenny&on must have had some 
picture like that in his mind when he sang : 

" For though from out this bourne of time and place 
The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face, 
When I have crossed the bar." 

Ah! how glorious that will be, when the 
great Pilot of our salvation has shot our life- 
vessel through the rapids of death, to have the 
privilege of grasping his scarred hand, pierced 
with the nails that held them to the cross, and, 
looking up into his glorious face, to exclaim: 
" Blessed Pilot of my soul, great, glorious, ever- 
living Savior, accept my heartfelt thanks for 
having brought me and father and mother and 
multitudes of loved ones safely through.' 1 

I know that, deep down in your heart, there 
must be something to which all this appeals. 
There is an old legend about the coast of Brit- 
tany, about an imaginary town called Is, which 
is supposed to have been swallowed up by the 
sea at some unknown time. According to the 
legend, the tips of the spires of the churches 
may be seen in the hollow of the waves when 
the sea is rough, while during a calm the music 
of their bells, ringing out the hymn appropriate 



A Feast for Heavenly Visitors. 351 

to the day, rises above the water. So, brother, I 
know that, deep down at the bottom of your 
heart, underneath all the waves of worldly am- 
bitions and plans, of sinful habits and evil 
thoughts, — down, underneath it all, in your heart 
there are yearnings and desires for the better 
life, that ring sadly and perpetually. O, I pray 
God that you may give vent to that better self — 
that you may have power given by the Holy 
Spirit to take hold upon One who is able to lift 
that better self into triumphant rule in your life ! 



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